









Author 



Title 



Imprint 



16— 30299-1 «PO 









i ■.: m 








OUTLINES 



MENTAL PHILOSOPHY OR PSYCHOLOGY, 



s 



SYSTEM OF QUESTIONS. .J 



BY 

N. 'W/FISKE. 



jlXii^MB^W^ 



AMHERST: 
J. S. & C. ADAMS. 

IS42. 



! 



336 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in 1842, by 

N. W. FISKE, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 



f^) 






(V} 

o 



** 



N. B. Thfs System of questions is not to be considered as 
published. It was designed solely for the use of members of 
Amherst College while pursuing their elementary course in 
Mental Philosophy. It is printed merely for their convenience ; 
and in compliance with a special request from the present Se- 
nior Class. 

The questions are specially adapted to the writings of Stewart, 
Brown, and Upham; but are intended to lead the Student to per- 
sonal examination and reflection. Those now printed relate to 
the philosophy of the fntellect. "Whether the system shall be 
completed, including some additional points relating to the 
Intellect, with the philosophy of the Sensibilities or Heart, and 
of the Will, and also a general Review of the chief points in which 
different schools of philosophy disagree, must depend on future 
circumstances. 

Amherst College, Oct. 20, 1842. 



1<C 



TOPIC I. 



Subjects Properly Investigated in Mental Philosophy. 

1. What do we investigate in Mental Philosophy? 

2. What are the four branches which may be included under 

Mental Philosophy taken in its most comprehensive sense ? 

3. What the precise province of each branch ? 

4. Is the phrase Mental Philosophy commonly used in the most 

comprehensive sense ? 

5. To which of the four branches is the phrase more commonly 

applied ? 

6. Mention other names by which that branch has been desig- 

nated ? 

7. What objection to the phrase Intellectual Philosophy ? 

8. What objection to the term Metaphysics ? 

9- Why has such prejudice existed against Metaphysics? 
10. What the character of the questions discussed by the school- 



men 



11. Does this furnish just ground of objection to the study o 

Mental Philosophy ? 

12. What advantage in employing the term Psychology to desig- 

nate the branch of science which has commonly been called 
Mental Philosophy, but which Brown terms Mental Physi- 
ology ? 

13. How do you show that Psychology is as truly a science as 

any branch of material philosophy ? 

14. May Psychology be considered as a branch of general phy- 

sics ? 

15. Does the etymology of the word physics justify our applying 

it to mind as well as matter ? 

16. What natural foundation is there for embracing all science in 

two grand divisions ? 

17. Give the definition of matter. 

18. The definition of mind. 

19. Why is it, that in defining matter and mind we merely make 

a statement of their properties ? 

20. How do we know matter to be anything but a collection of 

properties ? 

21. How do we know mind to be any thing but a mere union of 

properties ? 

22. How do we know that mind is not matter ? 

2 



23. Is there as much evidence of the existence of mind as of the 

existence of matter? 

24. In studying Psychology why should we confine inquiry to the 

phenomena or properties of mind, instead of searching into 
its essence ? 

TOPIC II. 

Utility of Psychology. 

1. In what degree useful is Psychology, or that branch of sci- 

ence which has been commonly called Mental Philosophy? 

2. Mention the several views which may be separately taken 

in exhibiting its utility. 

First View. 

1. What is the relation which the mind holds to all the sciences 

in common ? 

2. In what does science consist? 

3. Where then does all science exist? 

4. Would a change in the powers of the human mind produce a 

a change inhuman sciences? Give Brown's supposition 
to illustrate this. 

5. In pursuing any science what the advantage in knowing 

the proper object and limit of inquiry ? 

6. How can it be determined what are the proper objects and 

limits in the various sciences ? 

7. In pursuing any science what the advantage of having rules 

of investigation or methods of procedure pointed out? 

8. How are correct rules or right methods to be established ? 

9. Why are the modern rules and methods of philosophizing in 

physical science far better than those of the ancients ? 

10. To whom is ascribed the honor of introducing these ? 

11. What does the history of physical science show as to the 

value of correct methods ? 

12. What then does the history of physical science show as to 

the utility of Mental Philosophy ? 

13. Wherein lies the greatest real value of Bacon's labors ? 

Second View. 

1. Mention the intellectual arts and sciences to which Psy- 
chology is specially useful. 

2.»What is the relation which the mind holds to all these in 
common ? 

3. Show the utility of Mental Philosophy to the Orator. 



4. Its utility to the Poet. 

5. To the writer in any branch of polite literature. 

6. To the Critic. 

7. The knowledge of human nature is in reality a knowledge 

of what ? 

8. In Education what should be the aim, so far as respects the 

intellectual powers and susceptibilities ? 

9. How may Mental Philosophy promote this end ? 

10. In Education what should be the aim, so far as regards the 

sensibilities and moral feelings ? 

11. How may correct Mental Philosophy aid in effecting this 

object ? 

12. In what facts is the great influence of early impressions and 

associations particularly seen ? 

13. To what extent does Stewart suppose that early impressions 

may be controlled by correct teaching ? 

14. What grand fact respecting the human mind does he appa- 

rently overlook ? 

15. Does this fact invalidate the argument for the utility of correct 

Mental Philosophy in respect to Education ? 

Third View. * 

1. Why is the study of Psychology important in reference to 

Ethics, or the branch commonly called Moral Philosophy? 

2. What states or exercises of mind are subjects of examination 

in both branches ? 

3. How is Psychology related to Theology ? 

4. What does the history of Theology show as to the influence 

of Mental Philosophy upon it? 

Fourth View. 

1. Point out the utility of Psychology to the Physician, in his 

profession ? 

2. Its utility to the Lawyer. 

3. To the Clergyman. 

Fifth View. 

1. How does the study of Mental Philosophy strengthen in the 

student the powers of attention and reflection? 

2. Why do most persons need to cultivate especially the habit 

of reflection, or looking into their own minds ? 

3. Illustrate the importance of uniting habits of reflection with 

habits of observation. 

4. How does the study of Mental Science affect one's self 

knowledge ? 



8 

5. How will it promote precision in the use of language ? 

6. What the influence of the study in relation to the two ex- 

tremes to which men are so prone,dogmatisrn and scepticism? 

7. What is its influence on general politeness? 

8. How may this study promote virtuous dispositions? 

9. How may it promote religious feelings ? 

TOPIC III. 

Proper Mode of Study in Psychology. 
(A) General Principles. 

1. How is the knowledge of the properties and laws of mind to 

be obtained ? 

2. Is the same true respecting the properties and laws of matter ? 

3. Does this statement apply to the most simple effects as well 

as to the most complicated ? 

4. Why can we not determine before observation (or a priori) 

what are the laws of mind and matter ? 

5. What must the student in Psychology chiefly observe ? 

6. May he admit the testimony of others ? 

7. Do we rely upon testimony for phenomena received as facts 

in other sciences ? 

8. Why are the statements of the Bible to be taken as testimony 

in Mental Science more than in astronomy or other physi- 
cal sciences ? 

9. In what sense may it be justly said, that the whole evidence 

pertinent to Psychology lies in consciousness ? 

10. Why can we not always receive as real facts what others de- 

clare to be their consciousness ? 

11. Can we learn what is the real consciousness of other persons 

in any way but by their declarations ? 

12. Why is it proper to infer general laws of the human mind 

from individual consciousness ? 

(B) Two kinds of Inquiries respecting Material Phenomena. 

1. Explain the two kinds of inquiry under which all our studies 

respecting material objects may be comprehended. 

2. By which inquiry do we learn the coexisting elements of 

bodies ? 

3. By which do we learn their powers and susceptibilities ? 

4. What science investigates the coexisting elements of bodies? 
.">. In what sense is it that any body is one f 

6. Is unity or oneness ever an absolute quality ? 

7. Illustrate this by the example of a leaf. 



9 

8. To what does Brown attribute the necessity of chemical 

analysis ? 

9. Mention two ways in which we can easily conceive that 

greater perceptive powers might have been given us by the 
Creator. 

10. Would either of these bestowments have enabled us to de- 

tect all the elements of compound bodies without chemical 
analysis ? 

11. Would any conceivable perfection of our senses enable us to 

know without experience what changes one body would 
produce on another ? 

12. What was Locke's opinion? 

13. In what way do we learn even the mechanical properties of 

matter ? 

14. When we have witnessed an effect why do we believe it will 

always follow its cause in future ? 

15. What was Hume's error on this point? 

16. State the distinction between the powers and the susceptibili- 

ties of a substance ? 

17. How far is the human mind capable of learning the cause of 

any change or phenomenon ? 

18. In the fullest explanation of effects, do we learn anything but 

a series of successive changes ■ 

19. When asked what ultimately or primarily connects the phe- 

nomena orchanges thus successive, what is the only answer 
we can give ? 

20. Must we admit that the properties of matter, its powers and 

susceptibilities, depend on the will of God ? 

(C) The two analogous Inquiries respecting Mental Phenomena. 

1. What are the two inquiries respecting mental phenomena 

which may be instituted analogous to the two respecting 
material objects ? 

2. How may the order of succession in mental phenomena be 

learned ? 

3. When asked what primarily connects the phenomena thus 

successive, what is the only answer we can give ? 

4. Must we admit that the properties of the human mind are de- 

pendent on the will of God ? 

5. In studying the mind what occasion is there for the other 

kind of inquiry called analysis? 

6. What is meant by complexness when asserted of a mental 

state or exercise ? 

7. Why may not mental states be called compound? 

8. Which of the two kinds of inquiries is most difficult ? 

2* 



10 

9. By which of the two may the greatest discoveries be expected ? 
10. Mention the instance of successful analysis of complex men- 
tal phenomena that is furnished by a brilliant discovery of 
Berkeley. t 

TOPIC IV. 

Consciousness. 
(A) Nature of Consciousness ; and various senses of the term. 

1. By what philosophers is the term Consciousness used to 

designate a distinct faculty of the mind ? 

2. What according to them is its office ? 

3. What absurdity does Brown charge on the doctrine of Reid 

and Stewart ? 

4. Is this manifestly an absurdity ? 

5. By what other difficulty is the doctrine of Reid and Stewart 

embarrassed ? 

6. Is it true that the mind by one operation takes notice of 

another operation distinct from it and yet strictly present 
with it ? 

7. May the mind after having had a sensation then take notice 

of it by another and separate act ? 

8. May it in the same way take notice of any state or operation 

it has had ? 

9. How soon after having the sensation or other state may the 

mind take such notice ? 

10. Why are we liable to mistake the remembrance of a state for 

a notice of a present state or feeling ? 

11. How may it be shown that an act of mind taking notice of 

another act must really be subsequent to that of which it 
takes notice ? 

12. Is the phrase lam conscious ever used synonymously with 

remembrance ? 

13. What according to Brown is the whole meaning of the propo- 

sition / am conscious of a present sensation ? 

14. Does that proposition really involve some other notions or 

acts besides the sensation ? 

15. Would the existence of a sensation or a series of sensations, 

without any notion of a self, really constitute an exercise of 
Consciousness ? 

16. Does the notion of a self involve also a notion of personal 

identity ? 

17. Does the existence of any one act or feeling virtually imply 

the notion of personality and identity? 

18. Are these necessarily involved when the mind distinctly re- 

cognizes a sensation or other state or act as its own ? 



11 

19. Did Reid and Stewart intend to set forth any thing more 

than this fact, when they pronounced consciousness a dis- 
tinct and peculiar faculty ? 

20. If a person wished to express the fact of his recognising a 

sensation or other mental act as his own, would it be natu- 
ral to say " I am conscious of it" ? 

21. What is the etymological meaning and force of the word 

conscious ? 

22. If the term consciousness should be employed to designate 

the fact above referred to, would it imply a distinct and pe- 
culiar faculty of the mind ? 

23. What is the most comprehensive sense that has been given 

to the term Consciousness ? 
2d. May it be used to designate any single act or state of the 
mind ? 

25. Exhibit the five senses of the term Consciousness which 

have been suggested in the preceding questions. 

26. Which of them is a sense contradictory to fact? 

27. In which two would Brown use the term? 

28. Which brings to view the mysterious process truly involved 

in an exercise of Consciousness ? 

(B) Reliance upon Consciousness. 

1. Why does every man rely upon his consciousness ? 

2. Can it be proved that our consciousness is not deceptive ? 

3. Should a man refuse to rely on his own memory and senses 

what would be thought of him? 

4. Could such a man learn anything ? 

5. Show that all attempts to study mind imply reliance on 

memory ? 

6. Is it proper to rely on memory till we have evidence that it is 

not deceptive ? 

7. What reliance or belief would necessarily be pre-supposedin 

any attempt to prove either that memory is deceptive or 
that it is not deceptive ? 

8. Are there other truths which we are compelled to believe 

without proof? 

9. What are such truths now commonly called ? 

10. Mention other names or phrases by which they have been 

designated ? 
.11. Why is the belief of such truths called direct ? 

12. Can our belief of them be strengthened by arguments ? 

13. In what sense are these truths essential to all reasoning ? 

14. What are the characteristics requisite to show that a propo- 

sition expresses a primary truth ? 



12 

15. Is the belief in our own consciousness justified by these 

characteristics ? 

16. What two other truths are most intimately connected with 

reliance on our consciousness ? 

17. Are the notions of personal existence and identity involved 

in every exercise of consciousness ? 

18. Mention other truths which must be implied in all our rea- 

sonings in the study of mind. 

19. Does the maxim that every change has its cause apply to 

mind as truly as to matter? 

20. What is the evidence that all minds operate according to the 

same general laws ? 

21. Why is it, that having observed an actual order of succession 

in our thoughts and feelings we pronounce it a law of the 
mind ? 

22. Is the same primary truth involved in all branches of physical 



TOPIC V. 

Classification of Mental Phenomena. 
(A) Stewart's Classification. 

1. State the twofold division which Stewart makes of the phe- 

nomena which it is the business of mental philosophy to 
classify. 

2. How far does this coincide with the " division of human na- 

ture into the powers of the understanding and those of the 
will?'" 

3. What is the basis or ground of this division ? 

4. What are the objections urged against it by Brown ? 

Intellectual Powers. 

5. What subordinate division of the Intellectual Powers is made 

by Stewart ? 

6. How many does he specify in his enumeration of the Powers' 

7. Give the enumeration. 

8. State his definition of Consciousness. 

9. Does he include sensation under his phrase Powers of exter- 

nal Perception f 

10. Does he recognize the distinction made by Reid and others 

between sensation and perception ? 

11. How does he describe Attention 9 

12. Is it according to him a simple act? 

13 Is it according to him always voluntary 3 
14. Give his definition of Conception. 



13 

15. How does he define the power of Abstraction ? 

16. What is the tendency of mind, which he would designate by 

the phrase Association of Ideas? 

17. Give his enumeration of the " associating principles." 

18. Does he admit that some of these may be resolved into others? 

19. Give Stewart's explanation of Memory ? 

20. How does he define Imagination ? 

21. What mental operations does Stewart include under Judg- 

ment and Reasoning ? 

Active and Moral Powers. 

22. What division of the Active and Moral Powers is made by 

Stewart ? 

23. Give the " heads" to which he says the most important of 

these Powers may be referred. 

24. What does he include under the Appetites ? 

25. What does he name as the principal Desires ? 

26. What is his subdivision of the Affections ? 

27. To what principle or tendency does he apply the name of 

Self- Love? 

28. What feelings does he include under the head of the Moral 

Faculty ? 

(B) Brown s Classification. 

1. What is the term employed by Brown to designate generally 

any mental phenomenon ? 

2. His reason for adopting this term ? 

3. Is it applied in an analogous sense to changes in matter? 

4. Is there any objection to using the term in the sense which 

Brown gives it ? 

5. State Brown's twofold division of mental phenomena? 

6. What is the basis or ground for this division ? 

7. Does the division bear the two essential marks of a correct 

classification ? 

8. Is there any objection to the terms external and internal? 

9. What circumstance renders this objection more forcible than 

it otherwise would be ? 

External Affections. 

10. State Brown's subdivision of the External Affections, 

11. Specify the less definite. 

12. Specify the more definite. 

Internal Affections. 

13. Mention the two orders into which Brown subdivides the 
Internal Affections. 

14. What is the basis or ground of this subdivision, or the distinc- 

tion between the two orders ? 

15. Give an example of each. « 



14 

16. Which is it that always presupposes the other, an emotion or 
an intellectual state ? 

17. Has this subdivision the marks of a good arrangement? 

18. Where would Brown place volitions or choices ? 
39. Is such an arrangement correct? 

20. What other objection is there to employing the term emotion 

to designate the feelings included under the second order ? 
Intellectual States. 

21. What are the two kinds or classes into which Brown divides 

the Intellectual States ? 

22. Give an instance of simple suggestion. 

23. An instance of relative suggestion. 

24. What is the basis or ground of this division ? 

25. Has this division the marks of a good arrangement? 

Simple Suggestions. 

26. State Brown's threefold division of simple suggestions? 

27. Mention the powers or operations of mind which Brown 

would reduce to simple suggestion. 
Relative Suggestions. 

28. State Brown's twofold division of relative suggestions. 

29. What is the basis or ground of this division ? 

30. Mention his five varieties of relations of coexistence. 

31. His two varieties of relations of succession. 

32. Do these divisions and subdivisions include all relations ? 

33. Mention the powers or operations of mind, which Brown 

would reduce to relative suggestion. 
Emotions. 

34. What are the simple or elementary emotions,to which Brown 

thinks all the emotions may be reduced ? 

35. Why does he prefer to treat of emotions under their common 

names, or in their complex form ? 

36. What divisions does he propose ? 

37. State his meaning in the name applied to each division. 

38. Give an example of an emotion belonging to each. 

39. What is his subdivision of the Immediate emotions ? 

40. Name those which do not involve moral feeling. 

41. Those which do involve moral feeling? 

42. What is his subdivision of the Retrospective emotions ? 

43. Name those which have reference to ourselves. 

44. Those which refer to others. 

45. Specify the emotions included by Brown under the Pros- 

pective. 



15 



(C) Nature of the Powers and Faculties which are ascribed to the 
Mind. 

1. Do the phrases Powers of the mind, and Faculties of the mind, 

signify any thing distinct from the mind itself? 

2. Do they designate agents in the mind, distinct from each 

other, or forming separate parts of the mind? 

3. Do they designate any thing really known to us except cer- 

tain classes of mental operations ? 

4. Show this, for example of the power or faculty of memory. 

5. Is it possible for us to learn what any faculty or power is, 

except by the operations, acts, or states of mind classed 
under the term ? 

6. Does it follow from this, that there is nothing else ? Or in 

other words, that a faculty or power is nothing but the 
actual exercises classed under the term ? 

7. What intuitive belief on this point does the structure of all 

languages seem to imply ? 

8. Does the term faculty, power, or capacity then imply some- 

thing not understood by us yet believed by us to lie in the 
mind's nature or constitution ? 

9. How shall we decide whether any asserted power does truly 

belong to the mind ? 

10. When we have thus ascribed to the mind several faculties or 

powers, into what illusion or mistake as to the nature of 
these powers are we in special danger of falling? 

11. What reason can be offered in favor of using the term attri- 

butes or properties instead of the term powers or faculties ? 

12. Would the term attributes be a proper one to apply thus ? 

13. What is the distinction between a power or faculty of mind 

and a capacity or susceptibility of mind ? 

14. Do power and capacity in the mind mutually imply each other? 

15. Show that memory, for example, may be called at the same 

time a power and a capacity. 

16. May the same be shown of every other name applied to desig- 

nate a class of mental operations? 

17. Can the same state or exercise of the mind then be truly said 

to be both active and passive ? 

18. Must every state of mind however active have some cause ? 

19. If different persons assume different points of resemblance 

between mental states as the basis of classification, will they 
be likely to make the same number of faculties ? 

20. Does the disagreement among writers on mental philosophy, 

as to the number of faculties which should be ascribed to 
the mind, furnish any just objection against the science ? 



16 

21. Which classes of states or acts, the more comprehensive di- 

visions, or their subdivisions, ought to be named as powers 
and faculties of the mind ? 

22. If one person should limit the name of powers to the more 

comprehensive divisions, and another should apply it to 
the subdivisions, would they be likely to agree as to the 
number of powers belonging to the mind ? 

23. What is the difference between a question of arrangement or 

classification and a question of fact ? 

24. State how far the disagreement between Brown and Stewart 

respecting the intellectual powers is a mere question of 
classification, and how far it is a question of fact. 

(D) Comparison of the most general divisions made by several 
different authors. 

1. How many classes have the Scotch and English metaphysi- 

cians usually formed in tbeir most general division ? 

2. What the most general division recognized by Locke and ear- 

lier writers ? 

3. What the most general division made by Reid ? 

4. What the most general division of Stewart ? 

5. That of Abercrombie ? 

6. That of Brown ? 

7. How many classes have the metaphysicians of this country 

usually made in their most general division ■ 

8. State the division made by Dr. Samuel West. 

9. That of Dr. Asa Burton. 

10. That of Prof. Upham. 

11. That of Dr. Schmucker. 

12. Are the divisions of these four authors substantially the same ? 

13. Why is their general division the best that has vet been 

proposed ? 

TOPIC VI. 

Sensation. 

1. Is the word sensation sometimes used to designate the states 

of mind called by Brown External Affections ? 

2. Using the term in this sense what would he included under 

the less definite sensations • 

3. Give Brown's analysis of appetite .' 

4. Do both the elements belong to what he calls External 

Affections ? 
.">. Specify the states which he calls muscular filings ? 
G. Are these pains and pleasures truly mental states ? 



17 

7. Do they result directly from certain bodily states ? 

8. Specify what are meant by the more definite sensations. 

9. Are these truly states of mind ? 

10. Why placed by Brown under the External Affections ? 

11. What the essential organ of all sensation? 

12. Do the brain and nerves consist of the same kind of matter ? 

13. Does the anatomist find the brain distinguished into parts by 

natural marks ? 

14. Can he tell the uses of these parts ? 

15. Can he tell why any other structure of the brain and nerves 

would not be equally adapted to effect mental operations? 

16. Having ascertained that the brain is somehow connected with 

the mind, could we infer the mental power from the quantity 
of the brain ? 

17. What is the exact amount of our knowledge respecting the 

immediate cause of sensation ■ 

18. Is the fact, that a change in the sensorial organ is immediately 

connected with a change in the mind, more wonderful than 
any other connection of cause and effect ? 

19. Do we know what change must be produced in the nerves in 

order to produce sensation • 

20. Is there any objection to calling it an impression? 

21. What has been the common opinion as to the manner in 

which the impression reaches the brain ? 

22. Brown's opinion on this point ■ 

23. Is it certain that any affection of the central brain is necessary 

to sensation? 

24. Persons who have lost a limb assert some facts which have 

been thought to indicate a propagation of impressions along 
the nerves ; what are the facts ? 

25. How can such facts be explained ? 

26. Why does the mind refer a sensation to the organ by which 

it arises, or to any part of the body ? 

27. What curious fact is stated respecting a person who after 

losing his nose had one formed artificially ? 

28. Give Dr. Bell's remark respecting the sign by which he de- 

tects a disease existing in the thigh of the patient. 

29. Do what are commonly called the objects of sense act on all 

the senses with equal directness ? 

30. Is it certain that in the case of touch and taste the object 

comes into real contact with the organs? 
31 How far does the consideration of the brain and nerves be- 
long to mental philosophy • 
3 



18 



TOPIC VII. 

Perception. 
(A) Mental operation designated by this term. 

1. Describe the mental state which always attends a sensation 

in a mature mind. 

2. Is this reference a state or act truly distinct from the sen- 

sation ? 

3. By what term is it appropriately designated ? 

4. Specify the three known steps of the process which takes 

place when we perceive an object. 

5. State an instance for each of the five senses. 

6. Why do we in common language include the whole process 

under the term perception 9 

7. Give the distinctive meanings of the terms impression, sen- 

sation, and perception. 

(B) Manner in which the mind is led to refer its sensations to a 
material cause. 

1. Suppose a sensation of smell to be the first sensation of a 

mind, would that mind refer it to any cause ? 

2. Would there be a belief of some cause distinct from itself? 

3. Would the sensation be referred to a material cause ? 

4. Suppose with no previous knowledge of matter the mind 

should have a sensation of hearing, would this be referred to 
a material cause ? 

5. Would the mind make such reference in the case of vision ? 

6. Would it, if the first sensation were one of taste? 

7. Suppose a sensation of touch to be the first, would the mind 

refer this to a material cause ? 

8. What is Reid's doctrine and the common one on this last 

question ? 

9. Why, according to Reid, would the mind thus refer its first 

sensation of touch ? 
0. How does Reid account for the reference the mind soon 
learns to make of the four other kinds of sensations to their 
outward material causes ? 

11. Does Brown suppose the mind to refer the sensation of touch 

to an outward material cause by an original instinctive 
belief? 

12. What are the two notions which are essential to constitute 

our idea of matter ? 



19 

13. Brown's distinction between the tactual feeling and the feel. 

ing of resistance ? 

14. What reason is there to consider the muscular frame as an 

organ of sense distinct from the sense of touch ? 

15. How according to Brown does the mind get what he calls the 

feeling of resistance ? 

16. Why according to Brown does the mind refer this feeling to 

an external cause ? 

17. How does this feeling of resistance come to be so instantly 

excited by the sense of touch ? 

18. What according to Brown is the " most important" and 

" original element of our notion of extension ? 

19. How according to him does the mind first obtain the notion 

of time ? 

20. How does the notion of time come at length to be so instant- 

ly excited by the sensation of touch ? 

21. Is Brown's account of our perception of extension satisfactory? 

22. How far according to Reid and Stewart is perception an in- 

stance of mere simple suggestion or association? 

23. How far according to them is perception an exercise of a dis- 

tinct power ? 

24. Can you show that perception by touch, even if it be awak- 

ened by the sensation originally and instantly, is yet not an 
exercise of a distinct power ? 

25. Which of the senses is first called into exercise ? 

(C) Original and acquired perceptions by sight. 

1. State the general means by which light from a visible object 

affects the optic nerve. 

2. Strictly, is the object seen or the light? 

3. Mention some facts to show this. 

4. Does the sense of light awaken orginally any notion of dis- 

tance ? 

5. What facts can you mention to prove the correctness of your 

answer ? 

6. Might the mind have been constituted so that a certain sen- 

sation should awaken the notion of distance? 

7. What does Brown think to be the fact as to animals ? 

8. Is he correct in this ? 

9. State the three means, or rather classes of means, by which 

we judge of the distance of objects. 

10. In what two ways may the optic nerve be affected differently 

by a visible object according as its distance from the eye 
varies ? 

11. As the object recedes from the eye, the size of the image on 

the retina diminishes in what ratio? 



20 

12. How does this afford means of judging the distance of an 

object? 

13. If the distance of an object from the eye be varied what 

difference will be made in the intensity of light from it ? 

14. How may this afford means of judging of distance? 

15. What use of this fact does the painter make in his art ? 

16- Why will objects appear to an Englishman in Italy nearer to 
him than they are ? 

17. Why do objects appear nearer than they are, when one first 

uses glasses for short sight ? 

18. Mention how the distance of the object will modify the mus- 

cular feelings produced in adapting the eye to look at it. 

19. How may these modifications furnish means of judging dis- 

tance ? 

20. But if the distance is not previously known, what can cause 

the muscular contractions requisite to adapt the eyes? 

21. In judging of the distance of an object how does previous 

knowledge of the distance of other objects afford help ? 

22. Why does a ship at sea usually appear nearer than she is ? 

23. Why does the zenith appear nearer than the horizon? 

24. What mistake will a person usually make in estimating the 

width of a river ? 

25. Why is the deception of a painting increased when you look 

at it through a tube ? 

26. Is our perception of magnitude an original or acquired per- 

ception ? 

27. If a visible object be first judged to be more distant than it 

really is, how will that mistake affect its apparent magni- 
tude ? 

28. Why do objects in a fog appear magnified ? 

29. Why will a fly on a pane of the window sometimes appear to 

be some large animal ? 

30. Why does the full moon appear smaller in the zenith than in 

the horizon ? 

31. Do our judgments of distance and magnitude reciprocally 

affect each other ? 

32. Mention the illusions which Capt. Parry describes himsclfas 

having suffered in traveling on the snow. 

33. Is our perception of figure an original or acquired perception ? 

34. How does the mind know by vision whether an object has a 

plain surface, or a convex or a concave one ? 

35. By what means does the mind decide whether the visible ob- 

ject is a triangle, square, or polygon ? 
;j(i. Suppose a person, born blind, to have obtained sight, and to 
have learned to judge of figures by Bighl ; what would lie, on 
• Beeing the picture of a cube or a globe, suppose that 
pictUI 



21 

37. To the actual experience of what person can you refer on 

this very question ? 

38. Are there persons who cannot distinguishcolors and who yet 

can distinguish visible forms ? 

39. Does a visual sensation originally awaken any notion what- 

ever of extension or expansion ? 

40. What is Brown's opinion ? 

41. What is his positive argument in support of the opinion ? 

42. Is this argument sound ? 

43. Have other philosophers entertained the opinion of Brown on 

this question ? 

44. Do persons on being freed from congenital blindness com- 

bine with their first sensation of light a notion of expansion ? 

45. Why do we not see objects double, since there is an image in 

each eye ? 

46. If we look at an object cross-eyed how will it appear ? 

47. Why do not objects appear thus to those naturally cross-eyed ? 

48. Why does not a body seem double, when touched by two 

fingers ? 

49. Since the image or the retina is inverted, why do not objects 

appear inverted ? 

50. Have there been cases in which visible objects have appeared 

double or inverted? 

51. Mention the curious facts referred to in the phrase accidental 

colors ; or ocular spectra. 

(D) Qualities of matter. 

1. State the celebrated twofold division of the qualities of mat- 

ter. 

2. Mention the primary qualities. 

3. To what two may they all be reduced ? 

4. Mention the secondary. 

5. Who first made the division ? 

6. What is the distinction between the two kinds according to 

Locke ? And what according to Reid ? 

7. What absurdity is obviously involved in supposing a resem- 

blance between sensations of the mind and qualities of 
matter ? 

8. Is our notion of the primary qualities as truly relative as that 

of the secondary ? 

9. What is meant by the notion being only relative ? 

10. Would new senses give us any but relative notions of matter ? 

11. What paradoxes were once drawn from the division into pri- 

iviary and secondary qualities ? 
3* 



22 

12. What was the proof adduced for such paradoxical assertions ? 

13. Is it equally true, that there is no hardness in a rock? 

14. Why does the assertion that there is no heat in fire, appear 

more plausible ? 

15. Is there any ground for the division of the qualities of matter 

into these two classes ? 

16. What are the two circumstances pointed out by Brown as 

furnishing a good ground ? 

17. Might it be added as a third, that the first sensations caused 

by the primary qualities awaken in the mind a belief of 
something existing out of itself? 

(E) Former theories to explain the manner in which the mind per- 
ceives external objects. 

1. State Aristotle's doctrine respecting the perception of ex- 

ternal objects. 

2. Give Plato's comparison to illustrate the process. 

3. Mention the comparison used by Locke. 

4. According to such views, what are the immediate objects of 

perception ? 

5. How extensively did the opinion formerly exist, that in per- 

ception some image must be present to the mind ? 

6. From which sense are the terms image, shadow, species, evi- 

dently drawn ? 

7. Can such terms be intelligibly applied to the other senses? 

8. What term came at length to be chiefly used ? 

9. Why did the philosophers suppose that in perception some 

image or species must be present to the mind? 

10. What does Locke assert to be the only way in which bodies 

produce ideas in us? 

11. What did the philosophers term that part or organ where they 

supposed the mind and the idea to come together? 

12. Mention the opposite theory, which was adopted by some, who 

admitted the maxim that nothing can act except where and 
when present ? 

13. What is the reason given by Malebranche for rejecting this 

and adopting the other theory? 

14. Will either theory afford any real explanation of the change 

produced in the mind? 

15. What improper assumption is involved in supposing, that the 

object or an image from it comes in contact with the mind, 
or moves the mind by impulse? 

1G. Should we admit this supposition of real impulse, would it ex- 
plain the mental change ? 

17. Do we know why or how impulse moves matter ? 



23 

13. What is the amount of our knowledge respecting the cause 
of any effect ? 

19. Is it certain that even in matter there is ever an actual 

contact ? 

20. What is the theory of Boscovich on this point? 

21. Wherein lies the peculiar merit of Reid's account of the 

process, which takes place when we perceive external ob- 
jects ? 

(F) The Ideal System and Idealism. 

1. What was the ideal system or theory of perception ? 

2. Why was it thus called ? 

3. Does Locke employ the word idea in such a sense ? 

4. Was there in Locke's time a popular use of the word to sig- 

nify simply what we now mean by it ? 

5. To whom is commonly ascribed the merit of confuting the 

ideal system ? 

6. What is Stewart's estimate of the value of Reid's labor on 

this subject? 

7. What is Brown's estimate of Reid's labors? 

8. Which is correct ? 

9. What led Reid to so much labor in refuting the ideal systemV 

10. How does Idealism differ from the ideal system? 

11. What respecting the existence of matter did Berkeley deduce 

from the ideal system ? 

12. Did he suppose himself to be weakening the proofs of the 

existence of God ? 

13. State his argument for the existence of God drawn from 

his view of ideas. 

14. What respecting the existence of mind did Hume deduce 

from the ideal system ? 

15. Had philosophers before Berkley's time been troubled in at- 

tempting to prove the existence of a material world ? 

16. Can the existence of our own minds, or of matter as external 

to them, be proved by argument or deduction ? 

17. Why then do we believe in either? 

(G) Origin of our ideas and knovdedge. 

1. What first occasioned the inquiry into the origin of our ideas ? 

2. Give Aristotle's account of their origin. 

3. State Plato's views. 

4. What was the peculiar doctrine of Des Cartes ? 

5. What philosopher took special pains to refute this doctrine ? 

6. What did Locke understand by the phrase innate ideas ? 



24 

7. Did he deny that there are intuitive truths believed by all 

without proof? 

8. Did the defenders of innate ideas mean more than that there 

are such truths ? 

9. Mention Dr. Hook's theory respecting the origin of ideas. 

10. Give Locke's account of their origin. 

11. What is the doctrine of Condillac and other French meta- 

physicians ? 

12. Could Condillac justly claim, that his doctrine was based on 

that of Locke ? 

13. What ideas or notions do we derive directly from sensation? 

14. What notions are according to Locke derived from reflection? 

15. Have we notions, which strictly speaking are not derived 

from either sensation or reflection ? 
16 Specify some, and state how the mind first gets them. 

17. Can the notions implied in intuitive truths be derived direct- 

ly from either sensation or reflection ? 

18. Under which of his two divisions did Locke place this class 

of ideas ? 

19. Can we decide whether sensations or other states are the 

first conscious exercises of the mind ? 

20. What- dangerous errors have been supposed to follow from 

admitting, that the first conscious state may be a sensation ? 

21. Do they justly follow from such admission ? 

22. Admitting the first conscious state to be a sensation, can we 

nevertheless see that the other powers of the mind might be 
awakened ? 

23. Give Stewart's illustration of this from a supposed case. 

24. Suppose it a fact, that consciousness commences with some 

sensation, can we justly infer that the mind could get no 
knowledge of a material world without the aid of organs ? 

25. Are there any facts tending to show, that the human mind can 

get knowledge of matter without organic sensations ? 

TOPIC VIII. 

Conception. 

1. What is the mental state or act termed Conception ? 

2. How does Conception differ from what has been called Simple 

Apprehension ." 

3. Is the term conception ever used in a sense comprehending 

the states or acts designated by the phrase simple appre- 
hension ? 

4. What reason is there for restricting the term as is done in the 

definition given by Stewart? 



25 

5. Objects of which of the senses does the mind seem to con- 
ceive most easily ? 

6. What facts are there, which indicate that the difference is 

owing partly at least to mere habit ? 

7. How may the power of conception be modified by the 

structure of the organs of sense? 

8. Show how the naming of any sensible quality, as perceived 

in an object, implies also a conception of that quality. 

9. What is Stewart's conjecture respecting some defects, which 

are apparently defects of sight, and are commonly so con- 
sidered ? 

10. What proof is there, that the conceptions of the same color 

by different persons are at all like ? 

11. Of what importance is the power of conception to a writer ? 

12. In order to secure a happy description of an object, which is 

best, writing from conception or from perception ? 

13. Mention two striking instances of great power of conception 

recorded by Abercrombie. 

14. What is Stewart's doctrine respecting a momentary belief 

accompanying conception ? 

15. If there is a tendency to awaken any such belief, why is 

the belief not usually more distinct and enduring ? 

16. What confirmation of his doctrine does Stewart derive from 

the phenomena of dreaming ? 

17. How does the mind decide that its dreams are not realities ? 

18. In case of optical illusions, how is the mistaken belief which 

first arises soon dissipated ? 

19. Give some examples. 

20. What makes it certain that in such cases there is a momen- 

tary belief? 

21. How may we explain the fear, which some even enlightened 

and philosophical persons have felt on being alone in dark- 
ness ? 

22. How may we account for the fear sometimes awakened when 

a person is standing on a high tower ? 

23. Why is it, that a man will usually ascend a ladder, or a tall 

trd*e or perpendicular rod, most easily by constantly look- 
ing upward ? 

24. Which would ascend a rod or spire most easily, a blind man 

or one with sight, they being equally fitted for it in other 
respects ? 

25. What is the common explanation of the fact, that we some- 

times feel anger and wreak vengeance upon inanimate objects 
that hurt us ? 
25. When conceptions are combined in new forms so as to con- 
stitute imagination, are they in such cases accompanied 
with momentary belief? 



26 

27. How does Stewart think we may account for the emotions 

awakened by theatrical representations ? 

28. Does his view accord substantially with what Karnes desig- 

nates by the phrase ideal presence ? 

29. What theories for solving such mental phenomena are no- 

ticed by Campbell ? 

TOPIC IX. 

Conceptions when combined with Perception. 

1. When conceptions are combined and harmonise with some 

actual perception, what is the effect on our belief in the re- 
ality of the objects conceived? 

2. Show how conceptions are combined with perception in the 

phenomena of sight ? 

3. Are the conceptions in these cases believed as fully as the 

perception ? 

4. Show what union there often is of mere conceptions with 

actual perception, when an object is seen through a fog or 
smoke, or in partial darkness. 

5. How may the principle now under notice be applied to ex- 

plain the origin of stories respecting ghosts and apparitions ? 

6. Why is it, that ghosts are seen only in partial darkness? 

7. Why is it, that if a timorous boy passing through a woods in 

the night will keep up a whistling or singing, he will be 
less likely to see ghosts ? 

8. How can we explain the fact, that persons sometimes see 

representations of animals and other objects in the clouds, 
or of human faces in trees and other inanimate things ? 

9. What is the curious fact respecting a certain lithographic 

picture (once common) called Bonaparte looking into his 
grave ? 

10. How can we explain the fact, that the sight of some relic of 

a departed friend awakens so much deeper emotion, than 
the hearing of his name ? 

11. How may the same principle be applied to explain the influ- 

ence produced on the mind by national monuments, and by 
flags and banners ? 

12. What the explanation of the fact, that a scholar has so lively 

emotions on visiting the principal places of classic ground? 

13. How may the same principle be applied to explain the singu- 

lar influence of a certain song upon Swiss soldiers ? 
J4. Apply the principle to the fact respecting a spoon found by 
our of the erew of a British vessel, on the banks of a river 
in Kamacal ka. 



27 

15. Give the two stories cited by Brown from Dr. Rush ; and 

apply to them the principle. 

16. In these and similar cases what positive influence does Stew- 

art suppose the perceptible object to exert? 

17. What further positive influence does Brown ascribe to the 

perceptible object? 

18. What does Abercrombie remark on this statement of Brown ? 

19. How may the perceptible object, even without exerting any 

positive influence, serve to promote a belief in the reality of 
the conceptions awakened ? 

20. When with some actual perception and harmonizing concep- 

tions there is combined a correspondent emotion, what will 
be the degree of the belief? 

21. Give the solution of the fact, that " to the jealous" " trifles 

light as air are confirmation strong as proof from Holy 
Writ." 

22. What is the influence of a trifling success upon a person of 

sanguine temper ? 

23. Show that in this case there is a harmonizing union of per- 

ception, conception, and emotion. 

24. If instead of being a present actual perception, it is only 

a remembrance, which combines and harmonizes with 
awakened conceptions, how will it modify the belief in the 
reality of the things conceived? 

25. Suppose that the conceptions are combined in harmony not 

with an actual perception, nor with an actual remembrance, 
but only with a conception of something acknowledged or 
believed to be real ; how will such a union affect the belief 
in the conceptions ? 

26. What use may the orator make of the principles of mind here 

brought to view ? 

27. Specify instances in which orators have made use of them. 

TOPIC X. 

Principles regulating the succession of thought in a 
simple Train ; or Laws of simple Suggestion. 

1. What obvious absurdity is involved in the very supposition, 

that a thought or notion may be caused by direct volition ? 

2. Does any thought or notion arise in the mind by chance ? 

3. Are we able to explain in every case, why one notion or 

thought rather than another is awakened ? 

4. What are the two kinds of suggestion into which Brown di- 

divides the Intellectual States ? 

5. Give his distinction between the simple and the relative 

suggestion ? 



28 

6. Show the value of the capacity of simple suggestion. 

7. Show that this value would be lost, if there were not some 

general laws regulating the exercise of the capacity. 

8. The tendency of one idea to suggest, another according to 

certain general laws has been compared to the mutual in- 
fluence of the " two sympathetic needles'' imagined by 
Strada ; what was the fiction ? 

9. State the three laws now generally received as the primary 

laws regulating the succession of our thoughts. 

10. What is meant in these cases by the term laics? 

11. Is this all that is meant by the term law in other cases, where 

we speak of laws of mind, or laws of matter? 

12. What ancient philosopher hinted the same three principles 

just mentioned as laws of suggestion ? 

13. Point out the most obvious operations of resemblance as a law 

of suggestion. 

14. May the various degrees of analogy be included under re- 

semblance as a law of suggestion ? 
15.. What figures of rhetoric are founded in suggestions by anal- 
ogy ? 

16. Wherein lies the resemblance between the things compared 

in such figures ? 

17. State the exact difference between simile and metaphor. 

18. Why is the simile more suitable for description than for strong 

emotion ? 

19. What other very important class of analogies does Brown 

mention under resemblance as a law of suggestion * 

20. What is the similarity or resemblance which forms the 

ground of the suggestion in all cases of invention or dis- 
covery ? 

21. Illustrate the answer, by the case of Newton's discovery of 

gravitation. 

22. Stale some of the cases, where the resemblance which oper- 

ates as the law of suggestion lies in the mere names of ob- 
jects, or mere arbitrary signs. 

23. Point out the resemblance which gives rise to puns and co- 

nundrums ? 

24. What is the resemblance in all iter at 'ion ? 

25. What is the resemblance in rhyme? 

26. Have resemblances of this species (i. e. in the mere sound of 

words and syllables) any considerable influence in modi- 
fying our trains of thought ? 

27. Give the remark of Bacon, which Brown applies to this in- 

fluence. 
23. Present some examples of contrast operating as a law of sug- 
gestion. 



29 

29. The degree in which this law modifies our trains of 

thought ? 

30. What figure of rhetoric is founded in it ? 

31. Give an example of contiguity in jAace operating as a law 

of suggestion. 

32. An example of contiguity in time. 

33. Show how the acquisition and use of language depend on 

the third primary law of suggestion. 

34. Whenever any two notions have once co-existed in the mind, 

or have by any means been brought into the mind in con- 
nection, what is likely afterwards to take place by the law 
of contiguity or proximity ? 

35. When one thought suggests another in consequence of pre- 

vious association of the ideas, which of the three laws is it 
that operates ? 

36. Which of the three primary laws has the greatest influence 

in modifying our trains of thought ? 

37. Why does not Brown name the relation of cause and effect 

as a distinct law of suggestion ? 

38. How, according to Brown, may even the suggestions by 

resemblance and contrast be reduced to the one law of 
contiguity ? 

39. Mention the few instances of simple suggestion that cannot 

properly be reduced under either of the three laws above 
specified. 

40. What reason is there for designating these by the phrase 

instinctive suggestions ? 

41. Why are the laws, which have been mentioned, called jm- 

mary ? 

42. How many secondary laws does Brown enumerate ? State 

them. 

43. May not other circumstances modify the primary laws ? 

44. Has the attention of philosophers been much turned to the 

secondary laws of suggestion • 

45. Is it probable that a more perfect generalization of such facts, 

or a better statement of the secondary laws, may be made 
by a careful observation and analysis •' 

46. What is Mr. Upham's statement of the secondary laws ? 

TOPIC XI. 

Memory. 

(A) Analysis of Memory. 

1. Define the mental operation called a remembrance P 
4 



30 

2. What the two elements which are combined in the complex 

operation ? 

3. Do Brown and Stewart agree in giving this analysis • 

4. Does Locke recognize the same elements ? 

5. State how a conception or other notion may become a remem- 

brance ? 

6. In order to change a conception into a remembrance is it neces- 

sary that the mind should refer to the exact time when it 
experienced what it now conceives ? 

7. When thoughts are re-awakened in the mind, are they al- 

ways accompanied with an idea of past time? 

8. If a re-awakened thought be not thus accompanied, can itbe 

properly called a remembrance ■ 

9. Is there an exercise of memory, when a person repeats a pas- 

sage from a Latin or Greek poet? 

10. When a person states a proposition of Geometry or Conic 

Sections, is there an exercise of memory ? 

11. In such cases, is there a reference made by the mind to past 

time ? 

12. Suppose a person repeats from an almanac, or a book on as- 

tronomy, the date of some future eclipse, is it an exercise of 
memory ? 

13. In such a case, what reference is there to past time ? 

14. Suppose one repeats a statement from history, e. g. William 

the Conqueror landed in England, A. D. 1066 : wherein 
consists that reference to the past which makes the repeat- 
ing of the statement to be an act of memory ? 

15. Strictly and properly speaking can the mind be said to re- 

member any thing but events of its own personal history ? 

16. Can one, in strict propriety say, " I remember that the battle 

of Marathon occurred A. D. 490." — or " I remember that 
the homologous sides of similar triangles are propor- 
tional"? 

17. Might one with more exact propriety say, " I remember the 

historical statement, that the battle of Marathon, fyc. — or " I 
remember the mathematical proposition that the homologous 
sides, S/-c. 

18. Is there any good foundation for the distinction which Stew- 

art makes between memory of tilings and memory of (rents ? 

19. Does careful analysis show, that a remembrance always in- 

volves a combination of the two elements, which have been 
pointed out ? 

20. What may be said of the wonderfulness of memory ? 

21. What material analogies are very often employed to repre- 

sf ni the capacity of retaining knowledge? 

22. Do such analogies afford any explanation? 

23. What is the distinction between remembrance and memory f 



31 

24. What is the distinction between remembrance and recollection? 

25. In what sense only can remembrance be voluntary ? 

(B) Application of the Laics of Sim-pie Suggestion to the phenome- 
na of Memory. 

I. MEMORY AS FOUNDED IN ATTENTION. 

1. What facts are there to show that the mind has sensations 

and perceptions without remembering them at all? 

2. What facts are there to show that the mind has conceptions 

and judgments without remembering them at all ? 

3. What is the readiest solution of the fact, that we sometimes 

cannot tell how our minds are led from one subject to 
another very different and remote from it ? 

4. Why is it that our sensations and perceptions, our concep- 

tions and other notions, thus sometimes escape beyond re- 
covery ? 

5. Can we tell precisely what degree of attention either in in- 

tensity or in duration is requisite to lay the foundation for 
memory ? 

6. Can we affirm, that the merely having a state or feeling of 

mind, is not a sufficient foundation for its being remembered? 

7. What does intense and close attention to one object of 

thought usually imply respecting all other objects ? 

8. Does the exercise of attention always imply some duration of 

time ? 

9. If any should say it is incredible, that the operations of our 

minds should be too rapid for our own attention and mem- 
ory, what may be replied ? 

10. Show the accordance between the first of the secondary 
laws of suggestion and the principle that memory depends 
on attention, 

11 State some of the curious mental phenomena connected with 
mechanical skill, which Stewart thinks may be solved by 
the principle that memory depends on a certain degree of 
attention. 

12. How does he apply the principle to the playing on a musical 

instrument with the fingers ? 

13. How does he apply his doctrine to the performances of the 

equilibrist? 

14. How would he by this principle partially explain the feats of 

jugglery? 

15. State some of the curious phenomena more purely mental to 

which Stewart applies his doctrine. 

16. How does he explain the cases of seemingly intuitive assent 

to mathematical theorems ? 



32 

17. How would he explain the fact, that persons most quick to 

form just conclusions themselves, are often very unskil- 
ful in communicating to others ? 

18. How may the doctrine be applied to the remarkable cases of 

persons called "arithmetical prodigies" ? 

19. What is Stewart's solution of the cases, where persons have 

seemed to possess the power of attending to many things 
at once ? 

20. Mention some of the remarkable instances of the power of 

attending to different things at once. 

21. Does Stewart consider attention as an act of mind distinct 

from the sensation, perception, conception or other notion 
or feeling, to which the mind attends? 

22. Does he consider it as also distinct from what he calls the 

act of consciousness, by which he says the mind takes notice 
of its own operations ? 

23. Does he consider attention as a voluntary act? 

24. In a case then of attending e. g. to a perception, how many 

acts of mind are implied according to Stewart? 

25. Does Brown agree with Stewart in considering attention as 

a distinct power ? 

26. What according to Brown constitutes attention to any exter- 

nal object ? 

27. What according to him constitutes attention to any act or 

operation of the mind ? 

28. Give more particularly his account of attention in the case 

of perception. What constitutes the attention ? What re- 
sults from the attention ? 

29. Why according to Brown is a perception rendered more viv- 

id by attention ? 

30. Is this explanation of the increased vividness satisfactory ? 

31. Is it more satisfactory to ascribe the vividness to the fact 

that the -perception is prolonged, while the organ is steadily 
adapted for receiving a full impression ? 

32. What facts may be advanced to show that the steady appli- 

cation of the organ for a certain duration of time is requi- 
site to distinct vision? 

33. May a certain duration of time be likewise requisite for dis- 

tinct perception by other senses ? 

34. If a conception or remembrance or any state of mind be con- 

tinued or prolonged, and other states or feelings excluded, 
what is the effect as to vividness ? 

35. Show the accordance between the second of the secondary 

laws of suggestion and the principle that memory depends 
on attention. 

36. Can the mind through volition detain a thought or notion, or 

in other words prolong its continuant ■ 



33 

37. "What two things may we specify as essentially involved in 

any exercise of attention ? 

38. Is desire necessary, in every case, to secure these two 

things ? 

39. But generally, what is the real difficulty with those who 

complain that they cannot fix their attention ? 

II. VARIETIES OF MEMORY. 

1. To which cause chiefly, original constitution, or acquired 

habits, does Stewart ascribe the differences among men in 
respect of memory ? 

2. Show how original constitution operating as a secondary law 

of suggestion might modify the power of memory. 

3. Show how habit operating as a secondary law of suggestion 

might modify memory. 

4. Mention the three traits of a good memory, as stated by 

Stewart. 

5. What is the principle of suggestion on which the susceptible 

memory is chiefly founded ? 

6. On what principle of suggestion is the ready memory chief- 

ly founded ? 

7. Why, according to Stewart, is the susceptible and ready 

memory not also retentive ? 

8. Do we not find very retentive memories in some, whose pre- 

dominant principle of suggestion is contiguity ? 

9. What does Stewart mean by casual memory P 

10. How may casual memory be distinguished from circumstan- 
tial memory ? 
1] . What does Stewart mean by philosophical memory P 

12. In which does the difference between casual memory and phi- 

losopical memory lie chiefly ; in the principle by which the 
remembrances are suggested, or in the principles by which 
the things remembered have formerly been arranged or as- 
sociated together in the mind ? 

13. What is the principle of suggestion by which one thought 

introduces other thoughts that have formerly been associa- 
ted with it ? 

14. Suppose two thoughts or ideas are first brought together by 

the principle of analogy or contrast, on what principle will 
each of them be likely to suggest the other afterwards ? 

15. Explain why the man of philosophical memory has Greater 

power of recollection than the man of casual or circum- 
stantial memory. 

16. Why will a person, who has learned a language only by 

hearing others speak it, lose his knowledge after ceasing to 
use it, sooner than one who has studied it grammatically ? 



34 

17. Which is more likely to shine in conversation, the man of 

casual memory, or the man of philosophical memory? 
Why ? 

18. What is the characteristic of the memory which may be call- 

ed verbal f 
19. What the principle of association employed in verbal mem- 
ory ? 

20. What the influence of philosophical habits of study upon 

verbal memory ? 

21. At what period of life is the susceptibility of verbal memory 

usually greatest? 

22. What advantage ought to be taken of this in our plans of 

education ? 

23. At what period of life should the study of foreign and an- 

cient languages be commenced ? 

24. Why is it that the common mode of learning languages en- 

ables us to read, but not to speak in them ? 

25. What peculiarity as to remembering names of persons is 

sometimes found ? 

26. How far is verbal memory desirable ? 

27. What is meant by artificial memory ? 

28. Explain the topical memory of the ancients. 

29. What was the special design of this ancient system ? 

30. What is the chief use made in modern times of systems of 

artificial memory ? 

31. Do any such systems supersede the necessity of efforts to 

commit to memory ? 

32. Give the objection urged by Stewart as lying against all 

such systems. 

III. PECULIAR VALUE OF PHILOSOPHICAL MEMORY. 

1. Why is it that generally the philosopical memory is most re- 

tentive ? 

2. What advantage has philosophical memory as to the com- 

mand of its stores ? 

3. Give Stewart's illustration of this from the papers of a mer- 

chant or lawyer. 

4. What advantage has the philosophical memory in reviewing 

the knowledge acquired ? 

5. What advantage has it in respect of comprehensiveness ? 

C. State how the philosophical memory may enable us to ascer- 
tain facts which are beyond the reach of actual observation. 

7. Illustrate this by an example from Geometry. 

8. What advantage has philosophical memory in qualifying 

man to act in new situations or emergencies ? 

9. What its advantage in reference to discovery of new general 

principles or laws ? 



a 



35 

10. Illustrate this from the discovery of the law of refraction by 

Snellius and the discovery of the laws of planetary motion 
by Kepler ? 

11. What the advantage of philosophical memory in reference to 

the interest awakened by new facts ? 

12. What advantage has it in imparting value to new accessions of 

knowledge ? 

13. Its advantage in reference to the gratification of curiosity, 

and to the pleasures of science ? 

14. Its advantage as to the power of reasoning? 

IV. CULTURE OF MEMORY. 

1. What fact respecting the operation of the several principles 

or laws of suggestion lays the foundation for great im- 
provement of the memory ? 

2. What effect upon the strength of any one of the intellectual 

powers is produced by the exercise of that power? 

3. Which of the intellectual powers seems to be the most sus- 

ceptible of improvment ? 

4. Why is it specially important to seek improvement of memory? 

5. What would you give as the first rule for cultivating the 

memory ? 

6. By what two effects particularly does attention strengthen 

the memory ? 

7. What would you say in this connection respecting rapid and 

desultory reading ? 

8. In order to fix the mind in attention what specific desire is 

always necessary ? 

9. What general or predominant desire will most uniformly and 

effectually secure the existence of this specific desire ? 

10. What connection is there between veracity or conscientious 

love of truth and strength of memory ? 

11. As a second rule, what precept would you give respecting a 

selection of ideas or objects to be remembered ? 

12. What is one grand reason that historical and geographical 

knowledge is so easily lost ? 

13. Which is better in most sciences and studies, to begin with a 

Compendium^ or begin with a Work of complete and full 
details ? Why ? 

14. As a third rule, what would you direct respecting the man- 

ner of associating the thoughts and ideas ? 

15. What advantages to memory will result from the habit of 

referring to general principles all facts or truths, which are 
learned ? 

16. How is it, that a mere theory on a subject may be of service 

to the memory ? 



36 

17. How may increase of scientific knowledge increase the 

means or helps for fixing in the memory the facts accident- 
ally offered to the mind from time to time ? 

18. As a fourth rule, what would you direct respecting the order 

or succession in the arrangement of thoughts and subjects? 

19. Would you apply this rule both to the arrangement of the 

general heads or principles, and also to the arrangement of 
the particulars or facts under them ? 

20. Show the bearing of this rule upon the order in which differ- 

ent studies or sciences ought to be pursued 

21. As a. fifth rule, what would you say of the practice of review- 

ing ? 

22. What is the secondary law of suggestion, on which you 

ground this precept ? 

23. Is there any danger of regarding this rule too much? 

24. What is the effect of using visible objects, or impressions on 

the eye, in acquiring knowledge ? 

25. What studies particularly illustrate the statement ? 

26. How may conversation on the subjects of our studies aid the 

memory ? 

27. In what respects may memory be aided by our committing 

our knowledge to writing? 

28. How is it that writing may cause acquired ideas to be- 

come essentially our own? 

29. Give Bacon's aphorism respecting reading, conversation and 

writing. 

30. What danger attends the practice of writing down what one 

learns ? 

31. What effect on memory is produced by frequent use of memo. 

randums in writing, or strings tied on fingers, or papers on 
buttons or sleeves, and similar devices? 

32. How far is it desirable to employ methods of artificial 

memory ? 

33. What advantage is there in throwing some things which one 

wishes to remember into verse ? 

TOPIC XII. 

Imagination. 
(A) Analysis of Imagination. 

1. What is the exercise or operation of mind which is termed 

imagination ? 

2. Is it u complex act in every instance ? 

3. What feature or trait is essentially requisite in a combination 

of conceptions or ideas in order to constitute it an instance 
of imagination ? 



37 

4. What term has been commonly used to designate that mental 

act in which we consider one quality or part of an object 
separately from the others ? 

5. In what relation to imagination does abstraction stand ? 

6. What distinction may be properly drawn between imagina- 

tion and fancy ? 

7. Illustrate by examples. 

8. In which of them is an act of judgment involved? Show how. 

9. By what name are such judgments commonly designated ? 

10. Conceptions derived from which of the senses does the term 

imagination etymologically indicate ? 

11. What probably led Addison and Reid to limit the province of 

imagination to this one class ? 

12. Why is not their view correct ? 

(B) Application of the Laws of Simple Suggestion to the Phe- 
nomena of Imagination. 

I. UNINTENTIONAL IMAGINATION. 

1. Can the mind form a new combination of conceptions or no- 

tions by direct volition? 

2. How then are the new combinations effected ? 

3. Show how suggestion by analogy or partial resemblance 

might introduce a new combination. 

4. Show how the complexness of our conceptions and notions 

may aid the rise of new combinations by the other princi- 
ples of simple suggestion. 

5. Suppose one element of a complex conception suggests some 

conception and another element of the complex one sug- 
gests another conception, what is likely to be the result ? 

6. Are such processes frequently taking place in the mind ? 

7. What is the process in cases of reverie or day-dreaming ? 

8. What is the form of imagination chiefly exhibited by the 

common mass of minds ? 

9. What other term does Brown employ to designate this form ? 

10. What peculiarity or characteristic must mark the fancy to 

entitle it to the epithet poetical ? 

11. Which of the primary laws of simple suggestion is it that is 

the chief source of original combinations ? 

II. INTENTIONAL IMAGINATION. 

1. If new combinations cannot be introduced by volition, what 

is meant by intentional imagination ? 

2. What states or acts of mind are there in such imagination, 

besides simple suggestions ? 



38 

3. Analyze the process of intentional imagination, giving the 

three essential parts in their order. 

4. Apply this analysis to the case of Milton's forming his pic- 

ture of Eden. 

5. When various conceptions have been suggested under the 

influence of desire, can the mind make a new combination 
of them by volition ? 

6. Is the mind then absolutely restricted to the accepting or re- 

jecting of combinations actually suggested ? 

7. Give Dr. Reid's simile to illustrate the power of the mind in 

this respect. 

8. Show how there may be, notwithstanding, a voluntary selec- 

tion of parts that shall enter into a new combination. 

9. Is there such a selection, usually, in the higher efforts of cul- 

tivated imagination? 
30. Show this in application to the case of a painter devising a 
new and splendid landscape. 

11. State Brown's explanation how the judgment or taste effects 

a choice among the combinations and images that are sug- 
gested. 

12. Is this a satisfactory account? 

13. How is it that the train of thought is kept such that the 

suggested conceptions and combinations are any of them 
suitable to the subject of composition ? 

III. CULTURE OF IMAGINATION. 

1. What are the two elements which must be specially regard. 

ed in cultivating the imagination ? 

2. Can both these elements be cultivated ? 

3. Why would you give it as a rule in the culture of the im- 

agination, to store the mind ivith images? 

4. How shall the images be obtained ? 

5. Why is it better to gather the store of images from nature 

than from books ? 

6. Why would you give it as another rule for the culture of the 

imagination to study carefully approved authors? 

7. Why would you give it as a general rule for the culture of 

imagination, to exercise intentional imagination f 

8. Is it in the power of every one, in these ways, to cultivate the 

imagination ? 

9. Mention some of the forms of composition, in which inten- 

tional imagination may be specially exercised. 
10. Will the mere practice of writing, upon any theme, promote 
the culture of the imagination ? 



39 

11. By what other kinds of combination may a person exercise 

his imagination ? 

12. Mention how the facts and principles of science may be em- 

ployed to give exercise to the imagination. 

13. Does attention to the combinations furnished by others in- 

crease the tendency to form new combinations or not ? 

14. Why is it comparatively difficult to cultivate the taste, in 

the infancy of the arts ? 

15. How is it that taste, in an advanced state of the arts, may 

produce excellent performances, without great creative 
power? 

16. What two things wholly independent of voluntary culture 

are there that may modify imagination? 

17. Point out the two ways in which, especially, original con- 

stitution may modify the imagination ? 

18. Point out how external circumstances may modify the im- 

agination ? 

19. Why should every one endeavor to cultivate his imagination ? 

(C) Arts connected icith the Imagination. 

1. What arts are specially connected with imagination ? 

2. What do you understand by a fine art? 

3. Mention the principal fine arts. 

4. How are the fine arts specially connected with imagination ? 

5. In gardening or creating landscape, show how imagination is 

requisite in the artist himself. 

6. Give Lord Chatham's beautiful phrase to designate the re- 

quisite ability. 

7. Gray's description of the requisite ability. 

8. In what sense is gardening addressed to the imagination of 

the observer ? 

9. In painting, show how imagination is requisite in the artist ? 

10. Why is imagination requisite in the observer ? 

11. Show how imagination is requisite in the author of poetry. 

12. Why is imagination requisite in the reader of poetry ? 

13. Is it requisite that the reader should form any combinations, 

except merely in conceiving those presented by the poet ? 

14. When a person reads or hears a description of a person, 

place, or object, is an exercise of imagination usually 
effected ? 

15. What effect often results, when the object is subsequently 

seen ? 

16. Show how a person may be greatly pleased with poetry, 

although he does not conceive the combinations which were 
in the author's mind. 



40 

17. Suppose the reader neither conceives the images invented by 

the poet, nor has any others suggested to him by the poetry, 
what will be his opinion of the poetry and its author? 

18. Why need we know anything respecting the character of a 

critic, before we can tell the value of his judgment upon a 
performance ? 

19. Give the criticism of the geometer, after reading a tragedy 

of Racine. 

20. Why is it not best in a description to be very minute ? 

21. What chiefly distinguishes poetry, in its aim, from the other 

classes of literary composition ? 

22. State the object of the poet, orator, and philosopher respect- 

ively. 

23. How far have the orator and the philosopher occasion to em- 

ploy and address the imagination ? 

24. What advantage has the poet over the painter and other ar- 

tists in addressing the imagination ? 

25. What is the reason for using metre and rhyme in poetry ? 

26. Why are general and abstract terms comparatively unsuita- 

ble for the poet ? 

27. State the disagreement between Burke and Stewart respect- 

ing the manner in which poetry produces its agreeable 
effects. 
23. Why is figurative language dangerous in philosophical com- 
positions ? 

(D) Influence of Imagination on the Character and Happiness. 

1. Why would the entire want of imagination hinder the im- 

provement of man ? 

2. How is any idea of very high excellence at first obtained ? 

3. In what way has imagination been subservient to all illus- 

trious attainments and achievements ? 

4. Show how imagination may be rendered subservient to foster 

love of virtue and hatred of vice. 

5. How does full compliance with the golden rule of the gos- 

pel require an exercise of imagination ? 
C. How may imagination affect sensibility ? 

7. Are we to infer from this fact, that imagination is the whole 

cause of sensibility • 

8. How may the exercise of imagination heighten our sensi- 

bility to our own experience of good and ill? 
0. Give Stewart's argument to show that selfishness is owing 
chiefly to want of attention and want of imagination. 

10. What may show, that this is not conclusive? 

11. Are persons free from selfishness in proportion to their 

powers of imagination ? 



41 

12. What may be said generally of the influence of imagination 

upon the emotions and passions ? 

13. What is the tenderfcy, in respect to imagination, of habits 

of solitary study ? 

14. How may the imagination affect what is called good sense ? 

15. What is enthusiasm ? 

16. Show how an ill-regulated imagination unfits a man for 

actual life ? 

17. An explanation of the peculiar character of Rousseau. 

19. How is it that the judgment on actual affairs of life is so great- 

ly injured by novel-reading ? 

20. Stewart points out another serious injury that results from 

novel-reading: what? 

21. How may the indulgence of an ill-regulated imagination lay 

the foundation of keen disappointments ? 

22. What is the general effect of indulging imagination of future 

good without corresponding exertion ? 

23. In most cases of permanent melancholy, what is the cause ? 

24. In most cases of insanity, what is the explanation, so far as 

mental causes are concerned ? 

25. When imagination begins to gain the ascendancy, what is a 

good remedy ? 

26. Why is constant employment useful to a mind prone to ex- 

cessive imagination ? 

27. Mention some of the ways in which imagination promotes 

happiness. 

28. How may a person secure amusement from his own imagina- 

tion specially ? 

29. How from the imagination of others? 

30. In what colors is the mind naturally prone to paint the 

future ■ 

31. How does this fact seem to illustrate the benevolence of the 

Creator ? 

32. How far into the future, does imagination extend her pictur- 

ings ? 

33. What is its effect upon the hope of the Christian ? 

TOPIC XIII. 

Judgment. 
(A) Nature of the Exercise. 

1. What is the state or exercise of mind called judgment? 

2. By what phrase does Brown designate such a state or ex- 

ercise ? 

5 



42 

3. What previous state of mind does a judgment or relative 

suggestion always presuppose ? 

4. How would you define judgment, considered as a power or 

capacity ? 

5. Taken in this sense, can it be reduced to any more elemen- 

tary principle ? 

6. What is the distinction between judgment and comparison? 

7. What is the only sense in which a judgment can be a volun- 

tary act ? 

8. How does judgment differ from reason ? 

9. Mention the most important of the different senses in Which 

the term reason has been used. 

10. State the distinction famous as having been made by Cole- 

ridge between the Reason and the Understanding. 

11. Is it anything more than a discrimination between two va- 

rieties of judgment? 

12. How important is such a distinction ? 

(B) Relation^. 

1 . What may be said as to the number and variety of relations 

discoverable by the mind? 

2. Is it easy to classify them? 

3. State Brown's classification. 

4. Is this complete ? 

5. In which of his divisions does he place the relations of taste? 

6. Where would he place moral relations ? 

7. Would such an arrangement be correct ? 

8. Will Brown's classification properly include the social and 

civil relations ? 

9. Give Upham's classification. 

10. Does this differ materially from Brown? 

11. Mention the relations noticed by Locke. 

(C) Propositions. 

1. How is judgment commonly defined in books of logic ? 

2. Is it necessary that the affirmation or denial should be ex- 

pressed in words? 

3. When a judgment is enunciated fully in words, what is the 

sentence thus formed called by the logicians ? 

4. What exercise of mind always takes place when there is an 

assent to a proposition ? 

5. Mention the three parts of a regular proposition. 

6. May all possible varieties of relations be expressed by propo- 

sitions composed of these three parts ? 

7. Does this fact show that all possible relations may be ulti- 

mately reduced to one ? 



43 

8. What is the relation which an affirmative proposition asserts 

to exist between the subject and the predicate f 

9. Would a complete notion of the whole subject always in- 

volve the predicate as a part ? 

10. Show this in reference to the propositions, e. g. Snow is 

white ; Man is fallible ; Slander is an aggravated crime ; 
Two is to six as eight to twenty-four. 

11. What is Brown's name for the relation of a whole to its part, 

or of a part to the whole ? 

(D) Belief of Truth and Error. 

1. What is the state or act of mind involved in receiving any 

truth ? 

2. Is this act essentially the same by whatever means the truth 

may be brought to the mind ? 

3. What is the state or act of mind involved in adopting any 

error ? 

4. If in both cases, believing truth or believing error, the mental 

act is essentially the same, what is it that makes the one a 
truth and the other an error ? 

5. What is meant, when it is said that truth always implies a 

correspondence between subjective feeling and objective 
reality ? 

6. How can it be explained, that there should seem to the mind 

to be relations which in fact do not belong to the things 
compared ? 

7. How is the mind rendered culpable or criminal for believing 



(E) Opinion and Knowledge. 

1. What is Mr. Locke's account of judgment? 

2. Is the word judgment sometimes used in such a sense ? 

3. What more specific term is often and better applied to such 

states of mind ? 

4. Locke's distinction between judgment and knowledge? 

5. Can all knowledge be reduced to some form of relative sug- 

gestion, or judgment ? 

6. Does the mind's knowledge of its own existence virtually im- 

ply relative suggestion ? 

7. Does the knowledge of a sensation or any other state of mind 

imply relative suggestion ? 

8. What is the state or act of the mind when it forms a con- 

jecture or a guess ? 

9. Point out the difference between conjecture, opinion, and 

knowledge. 



44 

10. Can we state definitely the degree of evidence and of belief 

requisite to constitute knowledge ? 

11. Mention the principal kinds or sources of the evidence which 

is a foundation of knowledge ? 

12. Which of these kinds of evidence is always involved in ad- 

mitting either of the others ? 

(F) Intuitive Judgments. 

1. What is intuition? 

2. Why are the truths which are thus believed called primary 

truths ? 

3. Can the belief of them be strengthened by reasoning? 

4. Is it proper to believe any proposition unless it can be 

proved ? 

5. In what sense is it that the truths called primary are essen- 

tial to all reasoning ? 

6. Mention some of the terms or phrases that have been employ- 

ed to designate such truths ? 

7. What objection is there to calling them first principles of 

reasoning ? 

8. What objection to calling them principles of common sense f 

9. What Scotch writers used this phrase ? 

10. What English writer undertook to ridicule them ? 

11. Does that author admit that there are self-evident truths ? 

12. Why does Stewart prefer the phrase fundamental laws of 

belief? 

13. State his distinction between principles of reasoning and 

elements of reasoning. 

14. What objection to giving them the name of axioms ? 

15. What objection to calling them transcendental truths ? 

16. What objection to calling them truths of the pure reason ? 

17. What is the distinction between a primary truth and an 

ultimate fact ? 

18. What is the meaning, when it is said that a primary truth 

commands irresistible assent ? 

19. Mention the most important of our intuitive judgments. 

(G) Culture of the Judgment. 

1 . What is commonly meant by a good judgment ? 

2. Give examples of cases where judgment is good in reference 

to some subjects or classes of subjects and not in reference 
to others-. 

3. What is meant by good common sense ? 

4. How may the judgment be improved? 



45 

5. If a person allows himself to form opinions on subjects of 

which he is ignorant, what is the influence as to his faculty 
of judgment ? 

6. If a person allows himself to form opinions hastily, what is 

the influence upon his power of judgment ? 

7. What is the influence as to his judgment, if he neglects to 

test his opinions, by frequent observations of facts? 

8. Why must a person be on his guard respecting previous 

associations, if he would cultivate his judgment ? 

9. Why must he be careful to cherish in his heart the love of 

truth and virtue ? 

10. How does mere learning or erudition affect the judgment ? 

11. Why has it so often been supposed that a good judgment and 

a strong memory are incompatible ? 

12. Are they incompatible ? 

13. How may the exercise of memory tend to impress the 

judgment ? 

14. How may the culture of the memory on the other hand serve 

to improve the judgment ? 

15. Why is promptness of judgment important as well as 

correctness ? 

16. State the advantage of having established principles or 



(H) Judgment as connected ivith Sensibilities or Emotions. 

1. Mention the most important of those complex operations or 

processes of mind, in which judgments and emotions or 
feelings are intimately connected. 

2. Give Brown's analysis ot Taste. 

3. Specify the emotions, and the judgments. 

4. Why ought not the judgments to be ascribed to a peculiar 

faculty ? 

5. What other judgments would it be as proper to ascribe to 

separate powers or faculties ? 

6. What good reason is there for giving a distinctive name to 

this class of judgments ? 

7. To which of the constituent elements of taste do the qualities 

delicacy and correctness respectively belong ? 

8. In what way may taste be improved as to both these qualities? 

9. What the elements combined in an exercise of Conscience ? 

10. The judgments involved relate to what subject ? 

11. What are the emotions involved ? 

12. Which of the two elements, exists first in the order of nature 

and is the foundation of the other? 

13. What is Brown's mistake on this point ? 

5* 



46 

14. Why is any tiling right according to the view taken by him ? 

15. What facts show that the emotion arises from the judgment ? 

16. How is the conscience to be cultivated ? 

17. What are the elements combined in an exercise of religious 

faith ? 

18. Show how an act of judgment is involved. 

19. Show how some emotion must be involved. 

TOPIC XIV. 

Generalization. 
(A) Analysis of the process of the mind in Generalizing. 

1. Why is the relative suggestion of resemblance one of the 

most important of our relative suggestions ? 

2. State the process of the mind which takes place in what is 

called generalization. 

3. Illustrate this by some example. 

4. Of how many steps does the process consist according to 

Brown? State them. 

5. Is the last of the steps or elements mentioned by Brown 

really essential to the process of generalization ? 

6. Is the process of generalization a hard or difficult one ? 

7. At how early a period in its existence does the mind perform 

this operation ? 

8. What proof of his generalizing and classifying does every 

child give by his use of language ? 

9. Is generalizing a frequent process in the young mind ? 

10. What difference is there between the generalization in form- 
ing a genus, and the generalization in forming a species ? 

(B) Former mistakes respecting Generalization. 

1. Mention the two opposite ways in which mistakes have been 

committed in relation to the process of mind in generaliza- 
tion ? 

2. By what classes of philosophers were these mistakes re- 

spectively made ? 
3 State the doctrine of the Realists. 

4. What the origin of this doctrine ? 

5. State the doctrine of the Nominalists. 

6. When and by whom was this doctrine advanced ? 

7. Nominalism was rejected by most of the schoolmen and 

frowned upon as heterodox ; but was revived hy what Eng- 
lishman in the 14th century? 

8. What is said of the controversy which was then awakened? 



47 

• 9/ The controversy was suspended by the Reformation ; since 
that time which doctrine has been more generally adopted ? 

10. State the doctrine of the Conceptualists. 

11. What eminent philosophers belonged to the class of Concep- 

tualists ? 

12. Is the doctrine of the Conceptualists, in the main, the same 

as that of Brown ? 

13. Why then does he prefer to be called a Notionist or Relation- 

ist ? 

14. Wherein has Brown improved upon the views of the Con- 

ceptualists ? 

(C) Meaning of General Terms. 

1. What is the process of mind which gives rise to general 

terms ? Show how. 

2. For what does a general term stand, or what does it mean or 

signify ? 

3. What, according to Realists, does a general term mean or 
, signify ? 

4. What, according to Nominalists, does a general term mean ? 

5. May an individual object be put for, "or be used as standing 

for, an indefinite number of objects of the same kind ? 
Example from geometry. 
5. Why does not this fact show that the account of the mean- 
ing of a general term given by Nominalists is correct ? 

7. Why is it proper to call the notion expressed or signified by 

a general term a general notion? 

8. When a general term is used, do the points of resemblance 

included in the general notion always occur to the mind ? 

9. Is a general term likely to suggest to the mind anything be- 

yond these common points of resemblance ? 

10. What is the objection to saying that a general term express- 

es a general conception t 

11. What objection to saying that a general term expresses a 

general idea f 

12. Why is it better to say that a general term expresses a gen- 

eral notion ? 

13. To what did Locke and the Conceptualists expose them- 

selves by using the phrases general idea and general con- 
ception f 

14. Give the passage from Locke respecting " the general idea 

of a triangle." 

15. In this passage, what other verbal impropriety is there, be- 

sides the phrase, general idea ? 

16. Show that equal absurdity is involved in the phrase, "gen- 

eral notion of a triangle." 



48 



(D) Invention of General Terms. 

1 . If a new general term is ever invented, or introduced into a 

language, what must have happened, in order to there be- 
ing an occasion for it ? 

2. Is a general term always formed and applied, wherever such 

an occasion exists ? 

3. State Adam Smith's theory respecting the origin of general 

terms. 

4. Suppose this theory to be true, does it invalidate Brown's 

explanation of the occasion which must exist before any 
new general term can be needed ? 

5. Are there, in civilized language, instances^ in which partic- 

ular terms are in this way changed into general terms ? 

6. Is it probable that in reality the first words actually used as 

general terms in any language were thus made out of par- 
ticular terms ? 

7. Did the first general terms ever used by man arise thus grad- 

ually ? 

8. Do terms, already generic, gradually become still more gen- 

eral or extensive ? 

9. Mention the curious fact quoted by Stewart from Capt. 

Cook. 

10. Give the reason assigned by Stewart why the people of 

Wateeoo applied the term birds as they did. 

11. Why is this probably not the true explanation ? 

12. What probably was the reason ? 

13. Does the strange classification of these islanders prove that 

mind forms general notions? Show it. 

14. Give examples to show that objects very unlike are classified 

together in science. 

15. Can you state other facts, to show that a general term is often 

gradually extended in its application ? 

16. When a general term is extended in its application, is it made 

to include more or fewer points of resemblance ? 

(E) Utility of General Terms. 

1. Remark of Dr. Reid respecting the comparative number of 

general terms in our language. 

2. State the principal respects in which general terms are val- 

uable. 

3. Brown's figure to illustrate the value of general terms in 

helping to grasp a greal amount of knowledge. 
A. Show how general terms are essential to the art of defining 
logically. 



49 



5. State how a logical definition differs from a nominal 

definition. 

6. Name some of the reasons, why it is important to cherish 

the hahit of correctly defining. 

7. Show that general terms are important in order to the com- 

municating of knowledge. 

8. Show that general terms are important in order to the advan- 

cing of knowledge. 

9. How far is it possible to reason without the use of general 

terms ? 

10. Give Brown's comparison to illustrate this. 

11. What is the doctrine of the extreme Nominalists on the ques- 

tion, whether there can be aiiy reasoning without the use 
of general terms ? 

12. State the considerations offered by Brown to show, that there 

might be some imperfect reasoning without general terms. 

13. Do the less rigid Nominalists admit as much as these consid- 

erations will prove ? 

14. Point out some of the evils and dangers attending the use of 

general terms. 

15. Show how general terms may occasion fallacious reasoning. 

16. Show how general terms may occasion the writing of non- 

sense, which yet may pass for sense both with writer and 
reader. 

17. Mention the cases pointed out by Campbell, where we are 

specially liable to be thus imposed on. 

18. What class of writers most apt to produce nonsense from the 

first mentioned source ? 

19. What classes from the other two ? 

TOPIC XV. 

ABSTRACTION. 

(A) Nature and Importaiice of the Exercise. 

1. Describe the intellectual state or exercise called abstraction. 

2. Are such states or acts frequent ? 

3. Is the term abst? action a good one to designate such states ? 

5. Can such a state of mind be introduced or originated by di- 

rect volition ? 

6. In what two ways, according to Brown, may the states called 

abstractions be introduced ? 

7. How may an abstraction be introduced by simple suggestion ? 

8. How may abstractions be brought to mind by relative sug- 

gestion ? 



50 

9. Do generalization and classification presuppose abstraction ? 

10. Can you point out a plain and just distinction between ab- 

straction, generalization, and classification ? 

11. What sense is there in which these states or acts of mind 

may be voluntary ? 

12. Why is abstraction an important operation of mind ? 

13. The term abstraction is sometimes used to designate what is 

commonly called absence of mind; what propriety is there 
in so using it ? 

14. What the difference between abstraction used in this sense, 

and reverie ? 

15. W T hat class of men are celebrated and ridiculed for this ab- 

straction or absence of mind ? 

(B) Origin and use of Abstract terms. 

1 Exhibit the distinction between a general term and an ab- 
stract term. 

2. The distinction between an abstract term and a concrete 

term. 

3. Does the formation of abstract terms require a notice of more 

than one existing object? 

4. Give examples of abstract terms which designate relations. 

5. Why would you say that abstract terms express abstract no- 

tions, rather than abstract ideas or conceptions ? 

6. Give Stewart's distinction between abstractions subservient 

to the imagination, and those subservient to reasoning. 

7. To which are abstract terms applied ? 

8. Mention the abstractions employed in mathematical reason 

ing, which are designated by abstract terms. 

9. Mention abstractions employed in mathematical reasoning, 

which are designated by general terms . 

10. How are lines and points considered in mathematical rea- 

soning ? 

11. How are levers and ropes considered in theoretical mechan- 

ics ? 

12. What is the utility of abstractions in reasoning? 

13. How does the use of abstract terms affect brevity of lan- 

guage ? 

14. What danger attends the use of abstract terms? 



51 
TOPIC XVI. 

Reasoning. 
(A) Analysis of the Process. 

1. What gives special importance to that class of relations, 

which Brown designates by the term comprehension ? 

2. State the mental process which takes place in reasoning. 

3. What the distinction between reasoning and reason ? 

4. What the distinction between reasoning and judgment ? 

5. How many propositions at the least must be used in order to 

express any argument ? 

6. What relation must the truth inferred or deduced hold to 

that from which it is inferred or deduced ? 

7. If there be a series of propositions forming a chain of reason- 
' ing, what relation has the truth contained in each succes- 
sive proposition to that contained in the proposition pre- 
ceding it ? 

8. Why is it proper to say that reasoning is simply a. progressive 

analysis ? 

9. In the longest train of reasoning then, what is the relation 

between the first and the last proposition? 

10. Ifa mind arrives, by a process of reasoning or successive de- 

ductions, at a proposition from which it can deduce nothing 
further, does this fact prove, that further analysis is im- 
possible ? 

11. How much may be really contained in some propositions that 

seem to be incapable of further analysis ? 

12. Brown's illustration of this by referring to the peasant's 

notions of number and quantity ? 

13. Repeat Stewart's explanation of the fact, that some minds 

seem intuitively to grasp truths which other minds appre- 
hend only by a series of deductions. 

14. Why are you here reminded of Newton ? 

15. Wherein lies the chief value of any new truth ? 

16. Does reasoning, strictly speaking, discover any new truths? 

17. How is it, that the mind forms opinions and judgments, 

which include truths which it does not suspect them to in- 
clude ? 

18. What caution respecting our habits of generalizing does 

does this suggest? 

19. Show how neglect of this caution may give rise to errors 

practically very mischievous to society. Examples. 

20. What epithet does Brown apply to reasoning, which proceeds 



52 

by evolving successive propositions from more comprehen- 
sive ones ? 

21. May all correct reasoning be included under this ? 

22. What does Brown mean by -proportional reasoning? 

(B) Explanation of what constitutes Skill in Reasoning. 

1. Why will not any string of propositions constitute an 

argument ? 

2. How is it that the mind is able to arrange propositions which 

will form cogent reasoning ? 

3. What is Mr. Locke's term to designate the quickness of some 

minds in finding the ideas or propositions which will make 
an argument ? 

4. Do such minds obtain the requisite thoughts or ideas by any 

direct volition ? 

5. Do such minds arrange and jit the propositions in the 

requisite order by direct volition ? 

6. What is the only sense in which reasoning is a voluntary 

process • 

7. How can we explain it, that trains of thought which will con- 

stitute good reasoning occur to some minds so much more 
readily than to others ? 

8. Show how diversity of skill or readiness in reasoning may 

result from the secondary laws of simple suggestion ? 

9. In reflecting on a proposition to be proved, which mind will 

be likely to have thoughts involving such relative suggest- 
ions as form a proof of it, the mind in which contiguity is 
the prevailing principle of suggestion, or that, in which 
analogy is ? 

10. In this connection, what would you say of the reasonableness 

of demanding that others should perfectly agree with 
ourselves ? 

11. Show how diversity of habits and skill in reasoning may re- 

sult from secondary laws of relative suggestion ? 

12. Suppose the same two objects to be presented to two differ- 

ent minds ; is it certain that the same relations between 
the two will be noticed or felt by both? 

13. When any one observes two objects, on what will it depend, 

which of the various relations between the two objects shall 
occur to his thoughts ? 

14. Why may the relative suggestions of the same mind in view 

of the same objects differ at different times ? 

(C) Cultivation of the pouier of Reasoning. 
1. Why is it desirable to cultivate the power of reasoning? 



53 

2. What influence upon the reasoning powers has the general 

cultivation of the mind ? 

3. What general rule can you give for cultivating the power of 

reasoning ? 

4. What more specific rules ? 

5. Why would you enjoin the same rules that you would for 

cultivating the judgment? 

6. Why is it important to discriminate the species of evidence 

appropriate to different subjects ? 

7. Why would you recommend the habit of carefully analyzing 

complex and general terms ? 

8. Why would you urge the habit of accurately defining 

words ? 

9. Why would you advise the study of Logic? 

10. What other more severe studies would you recommend ? 

Why ? 

11. Why would you recommend the reading of works distin- 

guished for close and sound argumentation ? Name some. 

12. Why would you urge the practice of arranging thoughts in 

such order as to constitute proofs of important propositions ? 

13. What habit as to noticing objections, would you enjoin ? 

14. Would you recommend the framing of arguments to support 



(D) Forms of Reasoning. 

1. Give the remark of Condillac respecting the art of reasoning 

which is quoted by Stewart. 

2. What does logic in reality leach ? 

3. When an argument is stated at full length and in regular 

form, what is it called by logicians ? What the derivation 
of the term. 

4. How many propositions in the regular syllogism ? What 

called ? 

5. Define the three terms of a syllogism; Major, Minor and 

Middle. 

6. The logicians speak of four figures of the syllogisms; what 

the reason for this ? 

7. Did Aristotle, the first expounder of the syllogism, notice all 

these four ? 

8. The logicians make nineteen moods of the syllogism; on 

what are these distinctions based ? 

10. What the four kinds of propositions which may thus be 

formed ? 

11. The letters A, E, I, and O, are applied to designate these 

kinds ; can you give the Latin mnemonic stanza thus ap- 
plying them ? 
6 



54 

12. How have they contrived to name these nineteen ? 

13. What is the pure syllogism? What the modal? The 

hypothetical ? 

14. What is the Dilemna ? 

15. What is the Enthymene ? 

16. What is the Sorites ? 

17. What is the argument which is styled reasoning a priori. 

18. What is that which is styled a posteriori ? 

19. What is that styled a fortiori? 

20. What is that styled per impossibile? that styled reductio ad 

absurdum ? 

21. Can every argument, whatever its form, be reduced to the 

form of a syllogism ? 

22. Can you show by an example, that a syllogism may make 

manifest the conclusiveness of an argument independently 
of tbe meaning of the terms used ? 

(E) Object and Value of the Sijllogism. 

1. On what axiom is the whole structure of the syllogism said 

to be built ? 

2. What was this axiom called in the scholastic Latin ? 

3. In what sense is the axiom essential to reasoning ? 

4. Does the strength or force of the argument really rest upon 

this axiom ? 

5. Give the syllogistic form of the argument to prove that John 

is a sinner. 

6. What is the proposition assumed in order to make out the 

proof? 

7. What does Brown charge as an absurdity upon the syllogism? 

8. Is this, which he calls an absurdity, peculiar to the syllogis- 

tic form of reasoning ? 

9. Give the proof that John is a Sinner, in the form of argument 

called Entl^mene ? 

10. Is the argument thus formed an instance of Brown's analytic 

reasoning ? 

11. Can you show that tbere is in this analytic argument pre- 

cisely the same assumption, which he calls an absurdity in 
tbe syllogistic argument? 

12. What other writers have charged the same absurdity on the 

syllogism ? 

13. State Brown's objection against the syllogism as retarding the 

process of reasoning. 

14. If the whole process of the mind in the shortest argument 

were exactly expressed by propositions, how many would 
there be ? 



55 

15. Which is usually the best form of stating an argument, the 

Syllogism on the Enthjnnene ? 

16. Is Brown right in supposing the syllogism to have been 

designed for discovering new truths ? 

17. Is Stewart right in supposing the syllogism to have been de- 

signed for the purpose of fortifying demonstration? 

18. What was the object of Aristotle in the syllogism ? 

19. Why is it not proper to speak of syllogistic reasoning as a 

peculiar kind of reasoning ? 

20. Give Brown's example of a syllogism from Aristotle, to show 

that the syllogism affords a specious disguise for absurdity. 

21. Can error and absurdity be thus disguised under other forms 

of reasoning ? 

22. What effects among the schoolmen does Brown ascribe to 

their constant use of the syllogism ? 

23. Why is it unjust to consider syllogistic reasoning as synony- 

mous with scholastic reasoning ? 

24. Wherein does Brown admit, that the syllogism may be 

useful ? 

25. Why is it, that the syllogism, if applied to a sophism or 

fallacious argument, will expose it ? 

26. Is this a sufficient reason for cultivating some acquaintance 

with the syllogistic system? 

(F) Mathematical Reasoning. 

1. Brown speaks of 'proportional reasoning and analytical rea- 

soning ; by what other terms are these two sometimes 
designated ? 

2. Is the division into these two kinds or species based on a 

difference in the mental process, or a difference in the 
subjects? 

3. What is meant by a mathematical axiom? Example. 

4. Is the proposition four and one &Tefive, an axiom. 

5. How does an identical proposition differ from an axiom ? 

6. In what, according to Dr. Beid and Campbell, is found the 

basis of all mathematical science ? 

7. W T hat is Locke's view of the question? 

8. What according to Stewart is the real basis of all mathemati- 

cal science? 

9. Which party is right ? 

10. What is a mathematical definition ? What a postulate ? An 

example of each. 

11. Why would not Stewart call axioms the principles of reason- 

ing ? 

12. Why would he call them elements of reasoning ? 



56 

13. Why would he call the definitions and postulates the prin- 

ciples of reasoning ? 

14. Give his distinction between the first yrinciples of reasoning, 

and the elements of reasoning. 

15. Which might the Latin word vincula designate ? 

16. What Latin word is often used to designate the other ? 

17. What does Locke mention as constituting that peculiarity of 

force which there is in the evidence of demonstration or of 
mathematics ? 

18. Why is he not correct in this ? 

19. What does Reid represent as constituting the peculiar force 

of demonstration ? 

20. Why is not he correct ? 

21. Wherein according to Stewart does the peculiar force of 

mathematical demonstration lie ? 

22. Are the definitions in mathematics descriptions of actually 

existing objects ? 

23. Why should the postulates in mathematics be ranked with 

the definitions rather than with the axioms? 

24. What science is ranked next to geometry in point of evi- 

dence and certainty ? 

25. What is the essential distinction between the truths of 

mathematics and those of mechanics ? 

26. The two reasons assigned by Stewart to account for a ten- 

dency to rely perhaps too much on mathematical reasoning 
in mechanics. 

27. If in mechanics or natural philosophy some conclusion is 

irresistibly deduced from some other proposition, why may 
not the conclusion have all the force of demonstrative rea- 
soning ? 

27. Why is it important in natural philosophy to illustrate by ex- 

periments even those propositions which are logically 
deducible from others ? 

28. How far did Leibnitz suppose that mathematical reasoning 

might be applied to mechanics ? 

29. What unhappy moral influence may result from an excessive 

application of mathematics to natural philosophy ? 

30. Dr. Beddocs and Mr. Leslie maintained that mathematics 

and geometry, ultimately, rest upon the evidence of the 
senses, or on observed facts ; what are the two considera- 
tions or reasons urged in support of their view? 

31. Give Stewart's answer to the first consideration. 

32. Why does Stewart propose to call magnitude and figure the 

mathematical properties of matter ? 

33. Give examples to show, that by our mentally abstracting 

these properties; from matter, mathematical science may 
• what is beyond the reach of human senses. 



57 

34. If all matter were destroyed, how would it affect the truths 

of mathematics ? 

35. How would the annihilation of matter affect the truths of 

astronomy and of the natural sciences } 

36. Leslie argues that geometry is founded on appeal to the 

senses, because all the fundamental theorems derive their 
evidence from the mere superposition of triangles; what is 
Stewart's answer to this ? 

37. State how Euclid proves the equality of the two triangles 

supposed in the fourth proposition of the first Book. 

38. Would actual coincidence as presented to the eye be a proof 

of geometric coincidence or equality ? 

39. State the mode in which the celebrated James Ferguson 

satisfied himself of the truth of the forty-seventh propo- 
sition of the first book of Euclid. 

40. Can apparent coincidence be effected by dissection in all 

cases where different magnitudes are equal ■ 

(G) Moral Reasoning. 

1. The phrase moral reasoning is employed to designate rea- 

soning on what subjects ? 

2. How might the reasoning on such subjects be rendered 

demonstrative ? 

3. Why is it not desirable in all sciences as well as mathematics 

to begin with hypothetic definitions ? 

4. What would be the real value of a system of physics or poli- 

tics or morals deduced demonstratively? 

5. What must be employed as the first principles of the reason- 

ing in all moral reasoning ? 

6. Does this remark extend to those branches of physical 

science to which mathematical principles are applied ? 

7. The axioms in mathematical reasoning correspond to what 

class of truths involved in moral reasoning ? 

8. Mention the most important of these truths. 

9. Why do we say it is a primary truth, that the laws of nature 

continue permanently uniform ? 

10. Does receiving this as a primary truth imply, that any one of 

the laws of nature is known intuitively ? 

11. Is our belief in the uniformity of laws of nature limited to 

the inanimate world ? 

12. Show how our knowledge of the character or nature of dif- 

ferent kinds or species of animals implies this belief. 

13. How is it that man is enabled to learn the character of the 

lower animals, to capture them, and subject them to his 
use ? 

6* 



58 

14. Why is it that we cannot tell beforehand how a man will act 

in any particular condition as certainly as we can tell how 
a brute will ? 

15. Why is that we can confidently predict how a man of a giv- 

en moral character, e. g. an avaricious man, will conduct ? 

16. How is it that we are enabled to ascribe to a man one char- 

acter rather than another ? 

17. Does all reasoning from the past to the future necessarily 

imply belief in the uniformity of nature's laws ? 

18. In reasoning from the past to the future when are we said to 

have the evidence of experience, and when the evidence of 
analogy ? 

19. Why is the evidence of mere testimony believed more read- 

ily by children than by older persons ? 

20. How extensively is testimony made the basis of reasoning ? 

21. Is the term probable applied to moral reasoning in order to 

signify any deficiency of evidence ? 

22. Give examples to show that the term probable as thus ap- 

plied includes truths that are as certain as anything in math- 
ematics. 

23. State briefly how the popular sense of the term probable dif- 

fers from the philosophical sense. 

(H) Distinctions between the Reasoning called Mathematical or 
Demonstrative, and that called Moral or Probable. 

1. State the distinction between Demonstrative and Probable 

reasoning, as to the first principles employed. 

2. Is there any difference between them as to employing pri- 

mary or intuitive truths ? 

3. State the distinction between Demonstrative and Probable 

reasoning as to the subjects proper for each. 

4. State the distinction between them as to the admitting of 

degrees of proof. 

5. A distinction between them may be seen by considering the 

opposite of a proposition proved by each ; state this. 

6. Give the distinction which may be seen by considering the 

obstacles which hinder success in each. 

(I) Inductive Reasoning, or the Baconian Philosophy. 

I. EXPLANATION OF THE BACONIAN METHOD OF PHILOSOPHIZING. 

1. Why are the phrases Baconian philosophy and Inductive 

philosophy used as synonymous ? 

2. When did Lord Bacon live ? 

3. What the work which contains his account of the Inductive 

method ? Why so called? 



59 

4. In what sense is the philosopher, as Bacon terras him, the 

" interpreter of nature?" 

5. Show how the phenomena of nature from a sort of language 

or signs. 

6. What are the two media or means, which the philosopher 

must employ, in order thus to interpret nature ? 

7. Why cannot the laws of nature all be learned by mere obser- 

vation of phenomena as they occur in the ordinary course 
of things, without any experiments ? 

8. Show how experiment may bring to light a law of na- 

ture which without experiment would not be known, 

9. Mention the sciences in which observation is the chief means 

of advancement, and those in which experiment is the 
chief. 

10. Of what use is mathematical calculation to the inductive phi- 

losopher ? 

11. Why is it desirable that anomalous facts learned by observa- 

tion or experiment should be recorded ? 

12. Mention a striking instance to illustrate this, in the history 

of Astronomy. A striking instance also in the science of 
Optics. 

13. What intuitive belief is implied in every case in which the 

philosopher deduces or infers a law of nature from any ob- 
servations or experiments ? 

14. Why did Reid call this belief the inductive principle ? 

15. When it is said that the philosopher ascertains a law of na- 

ture, what is the meaning of the term law ? 

16. What injury may result from receiving as ultimate facts 

those which are not such ? 

17. What illusion is often produced by using the terms late, force, 

jjoicer, activity &c , as naming or designating an ultimate 
fact ? 

18. When the Baconian philosopher has ascertained different 

single laws, what further does the intuitive method allow 
him to do ? 

19. How shall it be decided whether the explanations thus form- 

ed are correct? 

20. Show how the earth's annual revolution is explained by a 

supposed combination of two different laws of nature. 

21. Show how Galileo's explanation of the velocity of falling 

bodies is an instance of the same thing. 

22. Show that the explanation of the rise of smoke or feathers in 

atmospheric air is another instance. 

23. How are these several explanations proved to be correct ? 

24. What does Stewart consider Aristotle as having intended by 

his induction ('-Eyraywy/J ? 



60 

25. Point out the superiority of Bacon's induction. 

26. Compare the progress of science made under the Baconian 

method with that made under the Aristotelean philosophy. 



II. ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS IN THE INDUCTIVE PHILOSOPHY. 

1. Give the etymological meaning of the word Analysis. 

2. The etymological meaning of the word Synthesis. 

3. In what science were these terms chiefly applied by the an- 

cient Greeks ? 

4. State the process in geometry which they called Analysis ? 

5. State the process which they called Synthesis ? 

6. Show how the analytic process of the ancient geometers 

might help to discover new synthetic demonstrations. 

7. To what process in the Inductive philosophy is the term 

analysis applicable ? 

8. Show that this application accords with the etymological 

meaning of the word. 

9. Show how this application differs from its application in the 

ancient geometry. 

10. In which of these senses is it employed by Brown when he 

speaks of analytical reasoning ? 

11. To what process in the Inductive philosophy is the term syn- 

thesis applicable ? 

III. REGARD TO ANALOGY IN THE INDUCTIVE PHILOSOPHY. 

1. What is the common distinction made between reasoning 

from experience and reasoning from analogy ? 

2. Is the difference thus pointed out a difference in kind or 

merely in degree ? 

3. By which evidence, that of experience or that of analogy, 

do we know the efficacy of a medicine ? 

4. What leads the mind to reason thus from one individual and 

species to another? 

5. Show that the reasoning presupposes a process of generali- 

zation. 

6. Give Ferguson's definition of analogy. 

7. What is commonly thought to be the chief logical force of 

an argument from analogy ? 

8. What is the nature of the evidence which is called presump- 

tive f 

i). What is Mr. Stewart's estimate of the value and force of an- 
alogical reasoning ? 

10. What must especially and constantly be kept in view, in or- 
der to reason correctly from analogy ? 



61 

11 Mention the two extremes into which the mind may be led ; 
by a habit, on the one hand, of reasoning only from exact ex 
perience ; and on the other, of reasoning from partial anal- 
ogy. Some examples of each. 

12. Why is analogical reasoning more safe in an advanced state 

of science ? 

13. Why is a man well acquainted with the sciences more likely 

than any other to explain correctly new phenomena ? 

14. Why is the man in whose mind analogy is a predominant 

principle of suggestion likely to make discoveries in sci- 
ence ? 

15. Mention some of the pleasing analogies presented in the 

mathematics. 

16. Some of the interesting analogies in the department of nat- 

ural philosophy. 

17. Illustrate how the science of comparative anatomy is based 

on analogy. 

18. When we consider the instincts of the various classes of 

sensitive beings, what analogies are presented ? 

19. What striking analogies are presented when we compare the 

material and the mental world ? 

20. Mention the two analogies between the material world and 

the mental world pointed out by Brown as to the mode of 
studying each. 

21. What presumption does analogy suggest, on the question, 

whether the moral events of our planet are connected with 
those of other worlds as parts of a great system of moral 
affairs ? 

22. Mention some of the analogies which create such a presump- 

tion. 

23. What peculiarity in the various phenomena of the material 

and mental worlds is it which furnishes the most striking 
evidence of one universal Creator ? 

24. If a person, who acknowledges one Creator and Governor of 

the existing world, objects to some of the doctrines of natural 
or revealed religion, of what service may analogy be ? 

25. What author has most happily applied analogical reasoning 

in this way ? 

IV. USE OF HYPOTHESIS IN THE INDUCTIVE PHILOSOPHY. 

1. Describe what is meant by hypothesis in philosophy. 

2. Why have many considered the forming of hypotheses to be 

wholly inconsistent with the Inductive philosophy ? 

3. In this philosophy what distinction is drawn between bare 

hypothesis and legitimate theory 9 Give a good example of 
each. 



62 

4. Can you show that the forming of a bare hypothesis implies 

the noticing of some analogy? 

5. Of what service may a bare hypothesis be to the philosopher 

in his researches ? 

6. Of what use to the inquirer in any science is a knowledge of 

the hypotheses that have been made in that science ? 

7. Have hypotheses actually been the means of promoting the 

advance of science ? 

8. What facts can you mention to support your view ? 

9. If the hypothesis seems to explain all the phenomena, will 

that prove the hypothesis to be correct ? Give the reason. 

10. What does the Inductive philosophy require as the ultimate 

test of every hypothesis ? 

11. What dangers attend a fondness for hypotheses ? 

V. THE KNOWLEDGE OF CAUSES WHICH IS GAINED BY THE IN- 
DUCTIVE PHILOSOPHY. 

1. What is now commonly meant by the phrase " physical 

causes'" ? 

2. How much does the phrase imply as to the nature of the con- 

nection between the antecedent and the consequents ? 

3. What more as to the nature of this connection is usually im- 

plied by the phrase "efficient causes" ? 

4. If such a distinction is made, which of the two kinds of causes 

does the inductive philosphy ascertain ? 

5. In what sense is it that philosophy can be called the science 

of causes? 

6. Does the philosopher in any case learn wherein lies the ef- 

ficiency of a cause, or its power ? 

7. How does the knowledge of a philosopher differ from that of a 
common man ? 

8. Illustrate this by taking, for example, the law of gravitation. 

9. Of what is gravitation the name, so far as it is a name of any 

thing actually known ? 

10. Is the same true of all attraction and repulsion, impulse, mag- 

netism, electricity, &c ? 

11. Suppose it objected, that such a view reduces the Baconian 

philosophy to the mere business of generalizing or classify- 
ing ; what would you say to the objection ? 

12. But why is the classification or generalization of the Baco- 

nian philosophy more important than that of mere iNatural 
History ? 

13. What is the only correct meaning of the phrase law of na- 

ture? 

14. Is the word law used here literally or metaphorically ? 



63 

15. When the term law is used in its literal sense, what is always 

implied? 

16. Is there no case in which we learn more of efficiency than 

the mere fact that a certain antecedent is conjoined with a 
certain consequent ? 

17. Can it be shown, that, when we explain how or why any 

effect is produced, we merely state a series of antecedents 
and consequents ? 

18. Show it in the explanation how or why the different colors 

of the solar spectrum are produced by the prism. 

19. Suppose further discovery should enable us to explain why 

the rays of one color are refracted more than those of an- 
other, would the explanation of the solar spectrum then be 
different in kind ? 

20. Show the same thing in the explanation why or how a bell 

produces a sensation of sound. 

21. Since our knowledge of causation is thus restricted, does it 

follow that the power and efficiency of a cause lies in its 
being the uniform immediate antecedent? 

22. What is the peculiar doctrine of Brown as to the nature of 

power or causation ? 

23. What according to him constitutes a cause ? 

24. What is his grand argument to prove this doctrine ? 

25. What premise is assumed in this argument? 

26. Can such a premise be allowed ? 

27. If such a premise is allowed, what could you prove as 

to the existence both of matter and of mind? 

28. In what way does the Baconian philosophy peculiarly tend 

to remind the student of God ? 

29. Show how the lessons of the Baconian philosophy agree with 

the testimony of the Bible respecting God's agency. 

VI. STUDY OF DESIGN OR OF USES IN THE INDUCTIVE 
PHILOSOPHY. 

1. What is meant by the phrase final cause f 

2. What propriety is there in employing the term cause to 

designate such use, end, or design ? 

3. Is the phrase a happy or well chosen one ? 

4. Is the study of final causes a legitimate part of philosophy ? 

5. To which department did Bacon assign it, to physics or 

metaphysics ? What his reason ? 

6. Can you show that the final cause (i. e. the end or use) is 

often important as a fact or truth merely of physical 
science • 

7. Show this, e. g. in the end secured by water's freezing first 

at its surface. 



n 



64 

8. Show it by stating the effects of congelation and evaporation 

upon temperature. 

9. In what sciences especially may the search for the end de- 

signed by certain already discovered laws or structures 
bring to light new laws or facts ? 

10. Show how Harvey's great discovery evinces the scientific 

utility of studying ends or uses. 

11. How is the pleasure of scientific research modified by the 

consideration of final causes, or ends designed ? 

12. What moral benefits may result from proper attention to 

them ? 

13. What the probable reason of the unwillingness of the French 

philosophers to include this study under their physical phi- 
losophy ? 

14. What was the view of Newton and Boyle respecting the 

study in question ? 

15. How is the study now regarded by the English philosophers 

and men of science ? 

16. What valuable works in this department comparatively 

recent ? 

17. Have rules been laid down to guide the inquirer in stud}-ing 

the ends and uses, or the evidences of design, exhibited in 
the works of nature ? 

18. What name has it once been proposed to give this study as 

forming a distinct speculative science ? 

TOPIC XVII. 

The Phenomena of Sleep in their relations to 
Psychology. 

(A) JVaUire and causes of Sleep. 

1. What end is sleep evidently designed to effect? 

2. What is its immediate cause ? 

3. State the theory which ascribes it to the influence of carbon. 

4. Mention some of the remote causes of sleep. 

5. State how far sleep is under the control of the will. 
G. What is said of Napoleon in this respect? 

7. Why is self-control in this a desirable attainment.' 

(B) State of the Body in Bleep. 

1. In complete sleep, what is the condition of the organs of 

sense ? 

2. In what order are they usually brought into this state? 

3. In complete sleep, what is the relation of the will to the mus- 

cles ? 



65 

4. Why is it more important for the psychological studeni to 

consider the state of the body in partial sleep ? 

5. What part of human physiology will he need to understand ? 

6. Under what three heads is the cerehro- spiral system common- 

ly described ? 

7. Describe the spinal marrow. 

8. Name the four portions of the brain, most important to this 

subject; and their relative positions. 

9. What was the notion of Des Cartes and others respecting the 

tubercle called the pineal gland? 

10. What the number of pairs of cranial nerves? of spinal 

nerves ? 

11. Mention the nerves appropriated respectively to smell, sight, 

hearing, and taste. 

12. What is remarkable respecting the manner in which the 

spinal nerves are connected with the spinal marrow? 

13. What the discovery by Dr. Bell and Dr. Mayo respecting 

the different roots of these nerves? 

14. State the function of the anterior chord and the connected 

nerves. That of the middle chord. That of the posterior 
chord. 

15. Does Dr. Bell consider the two functions of the nerve that is 

connected with the posterior chord to be performed by the 
same filaments of the nerve ? 

16. What his view respecting a sixth or muscular sense ? The 

views of Abercrombie and Combe ? 

17. What effects are produced, if the nerves of motion are im- 

pressed or irritated? What, severally, when the nerves of 
smell, sight, taste or hearing, are impressed or irritated ? 

18. What remarkable cases of disease are explained by these dis- 

coveries ? 

19. How may these facts in physiology be applied to solve the 

phenomena of partial sleep ? 

20. Can we tell how or why sleep paralyzes any one of the 

nerves ? 

21. If we should discover that there is a nerve, or a nervous 

apparatus, for every other mental act or feeling as well as 
for sensations, would it solve the mystery of mental ac- 
tion ? 

(C) State of the mind in Sleep. 

1. What must the Phrenologist maintain on the question 

whether the mind thinks in perfect sleep ? Why ? 

2. What was Locke's opinion on the question? 

3. What writer has ingeniously controverted Locke's reasoni ng 

7 



66 

4. What facts render it credible that the mind may think in the 

most profound sleep ? 

5. Under what four heads or classes may we include the most 

remarkable mental phenomena exhibited in sleep ? 

I. DREAMING. 

1. In dreaming what generally is the relation of the will to the 

bodily muscles ? 

2. What generally the relation of the will to the train of thought? 

3. How is the train of thought carried on in dreaming ? 

4. What influence has the will on the train of thought in 

waking moments ? 

5. In dreaming what usually is the condition of the judgment ? 

6. Mention some specific characteristics of dreams which result 

from these general principles; as to the congruity of the 
parts ; as to the emotion of wonder; as to the belief; as to 
the estimate of time ; as to prevailing temper and habits. 

7. What is the most painful form of the characteristic last 

noticed ? 

8. Mention classes of dreams exhibiting something singular ; as 

to the senses ; as to the memory ; as to the reasoning 
powers; as to the future. 

9. Name some of the physical occasions of dreams. 

10. What is a frequent mental cause ? 

11. What was the conjecture of Baxter to account for dreams ? 

12. What do the phenomena of dreaming indicate as to the 

immateriality of the soul? 

13. What practical use may a person make of his dreams ? 

II. SOMNAMBULISM. 

1. In what chiefly does somnambulism differ from dreaming ? 

2. What, in common cases, is true as to the influence of the 

will and the judgment? 

3. Is it easy to make a classification of the phenomena? 

4. Mention certain peculiarities noticed in different cases ; as to 

processes of labor and skill; as to feats involving danger; 
as to intellectual power and skill in art; as to vision ; as to 
notice of distant objects ; as to consciousness and remem- 
brance. 

5. Mention a most remarkable instance of the last mentioned 

peculiarity. 

6. Whnt is the relation of somnambulism to mesmerism? 

7. What is the hypothesis of mesmerisers respecting a common 

or universal medium of sensation ? 



67 
TOPIC XVIII. 

Phenomena of Habit. 
(A) General Laws of Habit. 

1. Does the term habit designate any distinct power or peculiar 

process of mind ? 

2. Why should habit receive a distinct notice in our study of 

mental science ? 

3. What effect is produced by habit, or what is the law of habit ^ 

as to the tendency in the mind towards the operation or ex- 
ercise which is repeated ? 

4. What is Brown's explanation of this power of habit? 

5. Will the solution apply to all instances or classes of habit ? 

6. Will the solution explain all those instances in which there 

is only a recurrence of previously co-existing states? 

7. Is it proper to say that an emotion or volition is suggested P 

8. Does that law of habit, which has now been noticed, extend 

to emotions and volitions, as well as mere intellectual pro- 
cesses ? 

9. What effect is produced by habit as to the facility with 

which certain operations or actions are performed ? 

10. What class of actions does Brown select to illustrate this ? 

11. How does he explain the increase of facility ? 

12. Will such a solution apply except to the increase of facility 

which may take place while the mind is learning what vo- 
litions to exert ? 
13; Is there ever an increase of facility acquired by practice after 
the mind has accurately learned what muscles are to be 
used, and what volitions are requisite ? 

14. What is the effect as to the strength of muscles produced by 

mere repetition in exercise ? 

15. Is there any satisfactory solution of the effect of repetition in 

increasing the facility of muscular action and the strength 
of the muscle ? 

16. What, in general, is the effect produced by habit, as to the 

force or intensity of certain mental actions ? 

17. What striking illustrations of this principle have we in refer- 

ence to sensation and perception ? 

18. Can you give illustrations of the principle in reference to 

other powers ? 

19. Does this principle extend to the sensibilities or emotions, as 

well as the mere intellectual operations ? 

20. Give illustrations. 



68 

21. There is an apparent exception to this law, in reference to 

the sensibilities, which it is important to notice ; mention it. 

22. What author seems first to have remarked distinctly on this 

apparent exception ? 

23. Give Stewart's statement respecting the effect of repetition, 

or habit, upon the " active principles," and the "passive 
impressions." 

24. What examples, are given to show what is meant by the 

"passive impressions"? 

25. Is the weakening of the emotion in such cases, owing simply 

to the repetition of the emotion ? 

26. Suppose the fear, e. g. be indulged, in successive instances, 

with no resistance to it, what will be the effect of the repe- 
tition as to the strength of the emotion ? 

27. What are some of the ways in which the fear may be resisted? 

28. Suppose that any of those desires or other feelings of the 

mind, which Stewart calls " active principles," are, when 
repeatedly addressed, regularly resisted in some way or 
other, what will be the effect ? 

29. Is it possible that the gradual weakening of emotions, or, as 

it is often called, hardening of the feelings, may be, instead 
of an exception to, only an instance of, the law of habit that 
repetition increases strength ? 

30. What apparent exception to the law of gravitation may be 

mentioned as somewhat analogous ? 

31. Re-state the two effects which have in the preceding ques- 

tions been referred to as resulting from the repetition of 
mental acts; or the two general laws of habit as affecting 
purely mental operations. 

32. Re-state the effects of repeated resistance. 

33. Mention the divisions under which the most important forms 

or modifications of habit may be included. 

(B) Habits as modifying' Intellectual Character. 

1. What is meant by the phrase intellectual habits ? 

2. Are all the various mental operations, which have been 

noticed, modified by habit i 

3. In what facts do we see the common and universal influence 

of habit in modifying the powers of perception ? 

4. In what facts do we see its influence in modifying the pow- 

ers of perception variously according to the pursuits and 

employments of persons ? 
f>. In what facts do we see its peculiar influence, when persons 

are deprived of one of their senses ? 
6. Mention pertinent facts in relation to smell ; to taste ; to hear- 

inn; to touch ; to sight. 



69 

7. Describe the manner in which this modifying power of hab- 

it is rendered subservient to the education and happiness of 
the blind ; of the deaf. 

8. Mention the curious facts which seem to result from habit 

modifying perception by a sixth ox muscular sense. 

9. What three elements may be pointed out in analyzing the 

process by which these peculiar results of habits are in- 
duced ? 

10. Does a sensation become more intense by being repeated ? 

What will soon limit the increase ? 

11. How is attention concerned as an element in the process ? 

12. How is the third law of simple suggestion, or the principle 

of association, concerned in the process ? 

13. Why is it important in considering the effects of habit, to 

notice morejfully habits of suggestion ? 
14 Mention some of the intellectual peculiarities of individuals 
which may be resolved into habits of suggestion. 



1. What is ivit according to Lord Kames ? 

2. What is Locke's account of wit? 

3. What would Stewart add to Locke's definition ? 

4. Must there be some contrast as well as some analogy or re- 

semblance between the things combined ? 

5. Can you give a better definition of wit, than Locke's or 

Karnes's ? 

6. How is wit resolved by Stewart into a habit? 

7. In every instance of wit, what is the law or principle of sim- 

ple suggestion which is exercised? 

8. What effect will result, by the grand laws of habit, from ex- 

ercising this principle ? 

9. How does this secure or promote wit ? 

10. May wit be cultivated? 

11. Does this view imply that all persons might become equally 

witty ? 

12. What is the chief emotion awakened by wit? 

13. Why is wit in conversation more agreeable than wit in 

print ? 

14. Why is wit more agreeable in repartee than in attack ? 

15. Why is wit more agreeable in a writer, when he is limited 

or restrained by his subject ? 
16 Give Chesterfield's remark respecting wit and laughter. 

17. On what principle of suggestion is ridicule based ? 

18. How does ridicule differ from wit ? 

19. What is the emotion chiefly raised by ridicule ? 



70 

20. What is the principle of suggestion on which humor is 

based ? 

21. How does humor differ from wit and from ridicule ? 

22. What is the principle of suggestion on which puns and co- 

nrttivt Anrttnm o ore* hnilf ? 



nundrums are built 



II. POWER OF RHYMING. 

1. How is the power of rhyming resolved by Stewart into a 

habit ? 

2. W T hat is the principle of suggestion exercised in rhyming ? 

3. May the power of rhyming be easily acquired ? 

4. What is the source of the pleasure imparted by rhyme ? 

5. How far should a writer allow the rhyme to suggest his 

ideas ? 

6. If he introduces a thought merely or chiefly for the sake of 

a rhyme, what is the rule for placing it . ? 

7. To what does Stewart ascribe the pleasure which is felt from 

alliteration ? 

III. POETICAL FANCY. 

1. How does Stewart show poetical fancy to be a habit? 

2. What is the principle of suggestion exercised in poetical 

fancy ? 

3. How does poetical fancy differ from what Brown desig 

nates as unintentional imagination ? 

4. How does poetical fancy differ from wit? 

5. Mention the two ways in which an allusion of poetical fancy 

gives pleasure. 

6. Why are allusions from the intellectual to the material world 

more pleasing than allusions from the material to the in- 
tellectual ? 

7. Give the allusion of Pope, cited by Stewart as beautiful. 

8. Suppose this allusion reversed ; what the effect ? 

9. Are allusions from the material to the mental world found 

in good poetry ? 

10. Are such allusions ever pleasing ? 

11. Is the practice of spiritualizing things, or moralizing on phys- 

ical events and material objects, favorable to poetic 
fancy ? 
32. Wiiat three things would you mention as essential marks of 
an allusion deserving to be called a specimen of high poetic 
fancy ? 

13. What rules or directions can be given for cultivating poetic 

fancy ? 

14. What is the best way to furnish the mind with " a stock of 

images"? 



